Michael Sheen and Ruth Wilson recall being “gobsmacked” by the infamous BBC Newsnight interview between Prince Andrew and Emily Maitlis long before starring in A Very Royal Scandal.
“It’s quite hard to exactly remember how I first felt. My biggest takeaway was: How on earth did this happen? Why did he put himself in this position?” Wilson, 42, told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the Prime Video show’s premiere. “He has every opportunity not to do that, and he did. It’s extraordinary. I watched it a few times, actually, before I took this job. I’d seen it a few times because, I thought, it’s such a fascinating study of an individual.”
Wilson took on the role of Maitlis for the three-part miniseries, set to premiere on Thursday, September 19. Viewers will see the leadup to and fallout following Prince Andrew’s 2019 interview in which he denied knowing Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual assault. The accusations were revealed after Andrew’s connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein went public.
Sheen, 55, took on the role of disgraced royal family member Andrew for A Very Royal Scandal. He recalled thinking “this isn’t like any other interview I’ve seen” upon watching it live five years ago.
Michael Sheen, Ruth Wilson. Christopher Raphael/Blueprint/Sony Pictures Television(2)
The rebel prince. Prince Andrew has a history of shocking the royal family and the public with his choices — including his decision to marry Sarah Ferguson after dating less than one year. The Duke of York is the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Unlike his brother, Prince Charles, Andrew has […]
“I didn’t question it so much at the time, and I just sort of watched,” he recalled. “[I] saw the memes afterwards and the jokes and the late-night shows — all that cultural stuff that happened — but I’d never really, really thought about why [it was] so unlike anything I’d seen before.”
Playing Andrew gave him the opportunity to “sort of answer those questions,” or at least grasp an idea about what went wrong.
“In a world where interviews are so controlled and stage-managed — particularly with royal family and politicians — he was someone who was a person of power and privilege, voluntarily putting themself into the line of fire, and being made to be accountable for something that they had done or not done,” he continued. “People just don’t do that.”
The British royal family may appear prim and proper to the public, but they’ve faced their fair share of controversies over the years. One of the biggest royal scandals in recent memory came when King Charles III and the late Princess Diana announced their separation in 1992 after 10 years of marriage. At the time, […]
After nabbing their respective roles, both Sheen and Wilson watched the interview “hundreds upon hundreds of times.”
“What I tend to do when I’ve done anything similar to this. I’ve played real-life characters before, not necessarily where an interview is involved, but I will record interviews with them. That’s good research,” he explained. “I’ll record the audio of something so that I’m not distracted by the video element of it. There is both watching the interview and then listening to it.”
All three episodes of A Very Royal Scandal premiere on Thursday, September 19.
