Rufus Sewell and Gillian Anderson in The Scoop
When Rufus Sewell got the role of Prince Andrew, Duke of York in The Scoop — dynamic new Netflix drama about BBC Newsnight's disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis — he pored over the original footage to better understand the Duke's character. As Sewell replayed the meeting over and over again, a strange thing happened: he found himself thinking about Ricky Gervais from The Office.
“Watching Andrew was like watching a comic book masterpiece,” explains Sewell, 56, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “He actually reminded me a lot of David Brent, but with a little less natural warmth. It was the way he spoke past the interviewer, straight to the viewer; was well aware of the effects he wanted—little epiphanies that he came up with on his own, like fresh meat for the camera.”
On that Saturday night in November 2019, two million viewers watched in excitement as — with Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson in Scoop) at gunpoint — the Duke dug himself into an ever-deeper hole about the nature of his relationship with a deceased convicted sex offender . Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Roberts, who was a minor at the time. He was subsequently stripped of his royal duties and remains disgraced to this day.
The meeting won multiple Newsnight awards and spawned a million memes inspired by the Duke's various claims that he was «too noble» to break off his friendship with a billionaire Epstein; that on the evening Roberts said she met him at the Tramp nightclub he could be found at the Pizza Express in Woking; that he suffered from a rare inability to sweat.
However, despite the fun this all generated, everyone on Scoop was also aware that at the heart of the interview there was a serious topic — pedophilia and sex trafficking — that needed to be handled sensitively. And so Sewall, whose career has taken him from the National Theater stage in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia to the Netflix political thriller The Diplomat, was determined not to let his Prince Andrew slide into caricature.
«I have strong feelings about whether he's guilty or not, and I want to keep them to myself, but a very important part of the job is reminding people that these things are things people do,» he says. “I grew up in an era where Andrew was considered the 'cool royal.' I watched a lot of footage of him as a younger man, talking to people in factories and offices, and he was truly – undeniably – charming.”
Regrettingly admitting that his flamboyant looks made him a «lazy» actor to casting directors looking for «lecherous lords», Sewell says he was worried that a less-than-perfect impression would distract audiences from the drama, «and I'm not a natural imitator.» Therefore, he carefully studied the manners and vocal tics of Prince Andrei. “He wants to be seen as one of the guys: the guy, Navy, can talk to anyone, and it shows in the casualness of his vowels.” Sometimes he even dressed like the Duke: “I put on a jacket, let my hair down like him, all in order to find some kind of community.”
Once filming began, the makeup team spent up to four hours a day preparing Sewell for the cameras. “They would put on a bald cap, cover it with fine hair, and then attach the strands to the nostrils, around the chin, forehead and cheeks,” he says. “When my face retreated, his face appeared.” At one point, the resemblance became so strong that even the actor’s friends did not recognize him in photographs, and the producers decided to tone down the prosthetics because, as Sewell put it, “if you go too far, you start to look in the frame.” the wrong way.»
«It's very much like a thriller»: Scoop dramatizes the infamous Newsnight interview. Photo: Netflix
Another challenge for the filmmakers was how to maintain dramatic tension. After all, most of us have already seen the original interview, or at least know how it ended. What keeps us on the edge of our seats throughout Scoop is the portrayal of the tenacious pursuit of an interview by Sam McAllister (played by Billie Piper), the Newsnight producer on whose memoirs the drama is based, and whose tenacity ultimately convinced the Duke that talking to the BBC This will be a valuable opportunity to dispel his old «Randy Andy» reputation.
“It's very much a thriller,” says Gillian Anderson, who has played everyone from Dana Scully in The X-Files to Margaret Thatcher in The Crown on her way to playing Maitlis. “It’s stimulating even though we know what the end result is.” Moreover, Anderson notes, there are many unanswered questions: not least why exactly the late queen's middle son (and by all accounts her favourite) ignored his mother's edict — «never complain, never explain» — with consequences , which one commentator subsequently compared to «A plane crashes into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami and causing a nuclear explosion.»
“We don’t know to what extent Andrew rehearsed and whether his responses were his own or fed to him,” Anderson, 55, says via Zoom, her tone delightfully arch. “But someone thought it was a good idea. He had a chance for the interview to go very, very differently. Even after that, he considered it a success — to the point that Emily was given a tour of Buckingham Palace.»
But, she adds, it's worth keeping in mind that the royal family «has a role to play.» it's very valuable to a lot of people in this country, and part of that role involves isolation and not necessarily living in the real world. So why do we expect them to be able to respond in the real world?»
«He thought it was a success»: Rufus Sewell turned into Prince Andrew. Photo: Netflix
Sewell agrees. “Andrew is a product of his environment,” he says. “To be what he claims to be, the consent of the subject is required. It's clear that he's never sat across from anyone who told him, «Oh, they're assholes» or «Fuck off!»
Returning to footage of the original interview, he says, «When you look at him, you see a strange a mixture of guilt, innocence and victimhood. This is a person, in my opinion, who does not consider himself a bad person and experiences great compassion and sympathy… for himself.
“He constructed a narrative in which he is in some way a victim of his own honor. The people sent to protect him say the same thing: “He was framed.” This is quite likely given Epstein's modus operandi. However, one could argue that if you set a honey trap, how do you know who likes honey and who doesn't?
“From his point of view, some of what he says is true, it's just not a very good sign.» So when, for example, Prince Andrew says he has “no memory” of Virginia Roberts, “does that mean she was someone who was not considered a full human being? Does this mean that there were so many similar meetings? All this is very eloquent.”
Sewell examined YouTube videos of the Duke's words and gestures in the Newsnight interview being scrutinized by behavior analysts. “All experts agree that at certain points he told the truth, but used it to mislead, nitpicking whether something happened on a given day in order to create the appearance of sticking to the truth and avoiding another one.” darker point.»
«She's a force to be reckoned with»: Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis in Source: Netflix
Although Sewell (warily) accepted the challenge, Anderson told me that she found the prospect of moving into Maitlis «so daunting» that she initially turned down the role. “It was even more difficult than playing Mrs Thatcher. I was worried, 'Am I asking for trouble — not just embodying someone who is alive, but who has such a formidable presence, with real fans and about whom people have real opinions?'» Luckily, her partner, Peter Morgan, The Crown creator reminded her that she originally turned down the role of sex therapist Jean Milburn in Netflix's Sex Education — a role that has since achieved cult status and brought her a whole new generation of fans — and convinced her to reconsider her solution.
Like Sewell, she took an obsessive approach to researching Maitlis, a 53-year-old journalist so respected by her team that she comes across as royalty herself. “She swims, she runs, no one has ever seen her eat,” McAlister marvels in “Scoop.” «She's superwoman.» Now host of The News Agents podcast, Maitlis declined Anderson's request to meet because she is producing a competing interview-based drama, Amazon's A Very Royal Scandal, in which she will be played by Ruth Wilson (opposite Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew). . ).
However, Anderson discovered just how regal Maitlis can be when their paths crossed at a recent charity event. “It was very funny,” she laughs. “I came in that morning after spending a week with the children in the village, wearing dirty clothes all week” – Anderson has three children from a previous relationship – “and I changed very quickly; no makeup, no comb.
“But Emily is in a white skirt, tanned to the gills, in high heels, gorgeous. If you asked anyone which one was a movie star and which one was a journalist, I know what they would say. I had lived inside her for so long that I was too familiar and immediately hugged her tightly. She was very kind, but very limited. She is a force to be reckoned with.»
Billie Piper as Sam McAllister, the Newsnight producer whose memoir Scoop is based on based on materials Photo: Netflix
The Scoop was filmed in a warehouse in Watford, decorated exactly like the south drawing room at Buckingham Palace, right down to the gold and red velvet dining chairs spaced six feet apart, with interviewer and interviewee facing each other. The meeting was filmed in one take. «Emily says of that scene, 'It's like a gunfight,'» Anderson says. “And during filming it was exactly what I felt – like a duel.”
Scoop's script (Peter Moffat) is too clever to overplay its feminist message: but it makes clear that it ultimately took a team of women (led by Newsnight editor Esmé Wren, played by Romola Garai) to, as Anderson puts it, «bring power to liability», which led to the Duke paying Roberts £12 million in compensation without admitting any liability.
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While we can't know how he might have reacted to a group of male executives, Sewell has no doubt that «it would have made a subtle but perhaps profound difference to how he approached the interview, his level of confidence and what he was thinking about himself.» achievable. People make these kinds of unconscious assumptions all the time, perhaps even more so in Andrew's case because he has less imagination than most people.»
In the end, Sewell concludes, Andrew was confused that he is a polite but stern woman who refuses to submit to him. “As a child he was congratulated and adored for being a scoundrel, a lovable palace scoundrel, for all the things that boys are celebrated for — even more so then. He was led to believe that people liked his natural charm rather than his status as a prince. In this situation, sitting opposite Emily, he tries to reignite it, but cannot get the oxygen to do so. This is not lack of manners, rudeness or aggression on Emily's part. She simply doesn't deliver on half the contract he expects, and he's left gasping for air.”
Scoop hits Netflix April 5
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