Rachel Weisz admits she ‘felt terribly for Prince Andrew’ while watching A Very Royal Scandal as she’s interviewed by her ‘oldest friend’ Emily Maitlis

Rachel Weisz said she felt “terribly sorry for Prince Andrew” as she watched the Amazon drama surrounding his Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis.

The 54-year-old Oscar-winning actress also praised Michael Sheen’s portrayal of the disgraced royal in A Very Royal Scandal, which was released on Thursday.

She said: ‘What I love about the show is the empathy with which Prince Andrew is played, and the endearment and humanity in this character. That’s something the writer and Michael Sheen had to come up with.

‘That was an act of imagination. [I was] I watched the drama and felt so awful. I really felt sorry for Prince Andrew.’

She made the comments at the Cliveden Literary Festival during a conversation with Maitlis, 54, who she described as her “oldest friend”.

The former Newsnight presenter, who served as an executive producer on the Amazon series, admitted she asked her Hollywood actress friend for advice.

She said: ‘I called Rachel and said, ‘Help, this is your world and I don’t know how to deal with this.’

“I went to Rachel first and said, ‘What do I do? How much of myself do I give? Do I open my freezer and show them the vodka?’

Ms Weisz, who has starred in The Mummy and The Favourite, admitted she was “incredibly anxious” when her friend let the production team into her life.

The actress said, “Em’s a very private person, and I suddenly became afraid that your life was going to be invaded in this way, and I felt very protective. And I tried to give you some advice.”

In the new series, Maitlis is played by Ruth Wilson and we see her at home bickering with her husband, making breakfast for her children and drinking vodka from her freezer.

Maitlis even gave Wilson her own coat and handbag to use on set.

Ms Weisz added: ‘We’ve followed each other into our own worlds.

‘My world is fiction. Your world is not, it’s about finding the truth.

“I wanted you to feel that while there were facts that needed to be investigated, some of you needed to remain private. So I felt protective about that.”

The presenter also revealed that as a child she had ‘tried to tempt Rachel into a career in the news world’, but was unsuccessful.

Mrs. Weisz was accompanied to the event by her husband Daniel Craig.

The 56-year-old actor looked nothing like the slicked-back hair and tuxedo jacket of his James Bond days.

Instead, he opted for a limp-haired look and paired stonewashed jeans with a leather jacket.

Emily reflected on her historic interview with Prince Andrew in 2019 when she was a guest on Good Morning Britain on Wednesday.

On GMB Emily spoke candidly about the time she gave the interview, saying that rewatching the series made her realize how stressful it is to take on the challenge.

She said: ‘When I watch the drama, my heart starts to race – it takes me back to when I thought ‘will I remember to ask the right questions? Can I do this?”

She added of her reaction to Prince Andrew’s behaviour: ‘I realised early on that he would be candid in his answers. We never assumed guilt and it was an hour of his own words.

“It didn’t matter what he said, it would always make history. We knew we only had one chance to hear it from the Prince. In any case, it was a public document.

“We were trying to get a picture of what actually happened and that was quite forensic.”

When presenter Richard Madeley asked her after the interview what she thought of the prince, she replied cautiously: ‘I thought he had tried very hard to remember his lines…

‘He wanted us to film extra bits as well, he wanted to expand on the Pizza Express stuff and things like that, and it was a dilemma as a journalist whether he would add things that he wanted at the end.

“But he was happy with the interview. After the interview he gave us a tour of the palace and even invited us to come back again.”

She indicated that the interview could have been damaging: ‘I’m concerned about the consequences of it.

“There was a fallout for his family. I worry about him, as I do for anyone who has had a status drop. But I don’t regret the interview.”

To support her position, she added: “But nothing has been decided yet about Epstein’s victims.”