The upcoming Netflix drama about the now infamous interview between The Duke of York and BBC presenter Emily Maitlis seems to have an uncanny likeness from the actors.
Sex Education star Gillian Anderson and The Holiday’s Rufus Sewell play esteemed host and disgraced royal Prince Andrew in the upcoming Netflix film “Scoop,” which recreates the cringe-inducing 2019 interview in meticulous detail.
Sewell reportedly spent up to three hours a day per shoot in the make-up chair to resemble the disgraced Duke of York, while his co-star Anderson studied the interview and previous episodes of Newsnight in preparation for the role, as she didn’t become the best. no-nonsense reporter, even down to the slightest of her mannerisms.
The film will be released on Netflix sometime this spring and will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the interview came together and how the events surrounding it unfolded in tribute to the work of the four women responsible.
It is based on Scoops by Sam McAlister, who is also known as the ‘Booker extraordinaire’ on Newsnight after successfully negotiating and securing the interview in which the Duke was questioned about his friendship with late convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein.
Netflix’s upcoming drama about the now infamous interview between The Duke of York and the BBC’s Emily Maitlis seems to have an uncanny resemblance of the actors
Sex Education star Gillian Anderson and The Holiday’s Rufus Sewell play highly regarded broadcaster and disgraced royal Prince Andrew
Gillian Anderson plays the BBC’s Emily Maitlis
The palace is already set for two upcoming television dramas that will recreate the Newsnight interview. Netflix’s Scoop ended filming last year, and Amazon Prime’s A Very Royal Scandal was only a few months behind
Duke of York speaks for the first time about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein in an interview with BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis
McAlister himself is played on screen by former Doctor Who star Billie Piper, who joins a star-studded cast that includes Ashes To Ashes Keeley Hawes who plays Amanda Thirsk – the Duke’s right-hand man, and Romola Garai who plays Esme Wren, the Newsnight editor, plays .
McAlister said: “It’s rare to see representation of women in their 40s and 50s. This is an opportunity to see hardworking women at every stage behind the scenes’, she said to the Telegraaf.
Opening up during filming, he described Anderson’s resemblance to Emily Maitlis as “amazing.”
She said: ‘It was like being there with Emily, everything about her physique and her performance depends on the money.
‘They also have a similar intellect. Emily is very methodical. She worked very hard on every interview she trained, she studied and my impression of Gillian was exactly the same.
“She studied the material, she studied Emily, and she worked on that project both intellectually and dramatically.”
Sam McAlister is also known as the ‘Booker extraordinaire’ on Newsnight after successfully negotiating and securing the interview
Phillip Martin, Scoop’s director, added: ‘Rufus (Sewell) spent about three hours in the make-up chair. He started early in the morning and had to go through this strange process of putting on a bald wig before the other stuff went on.
‘We worked very hard to make all the prosthetics flexible and light enough so he could work through them.
‘With Gillian there are no prosthetics – it’s make-up and a wig and mannerisms.
Both actors watched the interview for hours as part of their preparation and Anderson also studied Maitlis’s presenting style on Newsnight.
Martin added: ‘Sometimes people can do a really brilliant imitation but not capture something.
‘What Gillian and Rufus have done so brilliantly is captured the spirit of the people they play so that it feels real.’
The room at Buckingham Palace in which the interview was conducted is also recreated in every detail, and the camera angles from the original BBC interview are matched frame-to-frame.
However, the film, with the script written by Steven Moffat, will not be an ax for the Duke.
McAlister continued: “We don’t take sides – we don’t say, ‘Oh, isn’t he great’ or ‘Oh, isn’t he bad.
‘It is up to the viewer to draw his own conclusions.’
Martin added: “I think a lot of people would be tying themselves in knots because they didn’t want to seem like they were either approving of Andrew or disapproving of him. Rufus wasn’t afraid of that.
‘Andrew was a bit of the Harry of his time – he was seen in his twenties and thirties as a great communicator with great social skills, a person who could get things done.
“I think Rufus really understood that side of things, and the sense that Andrew is older now but has a sparkle and a kind of charisma about him.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re pointing an arrow at him and saying, ‘This is a bad guy’… you’re seeing a person, and that’s a real tribute to Rufus’ take on it.”
The Duke was memorably punished for his response to Maitlis, which included a bizarre claim that he was physically incapable of sweating and an alibi that placed him in the Woking branch of Pizza Express – of all places!
This isn’t the only on-screen adaptation about the Duke, either.
The Mail on Sunday understands the film will explore the Duke of York’s “character arc”, from a “war hero” and the “Queen’s favourite” to the scandal over his close friendship with pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, which led to his departure from royal duties in 2019.
The Mail on Sunday understands the film will explore the Duke of York’s “character arc”, from a “war hero” and the “Queen’s favourite” to the scandal over his close friendship with pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, which led to his departure from royal duties in 2019
The infamous photo of Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, aged 17, at Ghislaine Maxwell’s mansion in London
The program is made by award-winning production company Sandpaper Films, known for working with top streaming services Netflix, Apple and Amazon.
Sandpaper has made several films about the royal family, including the 2017 film ‘Diana, 7 days’, which analyzed her final days and featured interviews with Prince William and Prince Harry.
Producers are keen to approach Andrew’s former private secretary, Alistair Watson, who worked for the duke between 2003 and 2012. If he cooperated, insiders say this could be “bad news” for the Duke as Mr Watson “knows where the bodies are.” to bury’.
Mr Watson was hired to support the duke in his role as Britain’s trade envoy, where he represented the government around the world after leaving the Royal Navy in 2001.
The duke has faced a series of controversies in his role, including claims he went on holiday with a Libyan arms smuggler. Andrew quit the role in 2011 after stories circulated about him visiting convicted pedophile Epstein at his New York home after being released from prison.
Respected author Andrew Lownie, who has written best-selling biographies of Lord Mountbatten and the Duke of Windsor, is said to act as a consultant on the documentary.
However, it is understood that the new documentary will not be ‘sensational’ and will not focus solely on the Duke’s disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, unlike the entire focus of Scoop.