[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for A Very Royal Scandal.]

The Big Picture

‘A Very Royal Scandal’ explores the lead-up, event and aftermath of Prince Andrew’s 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis on Newsnight about his Jeffrey Epstein ties.
Michael Sheen discusses portraying Prince Andrew, the pressure of recreating the interview, and audience satisfaction.
Sheen and Ruth Wilson brought intensity to the 20-minute interview, done in one shot, focusing on authenticity.

The story behind A Very Royal Scandal stems from the events surrounding the real-life 2019 interview between journalist Emily Maitlis (Ruth Wilson) and Prince Andrew (Michael Sheen) about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and the accusations regarding a young woman named Virginia Giuffre, who was a minor at the time the allegations took place. Prince Andrew ultimately agreed to do the Newsnight interview because he wanted to clear his name, and he believed he could effectively make the case in defense of himself. But it was likely his own arrogance that led to the shocking and baffling answers that caused his exit from public life.

While many might be familiar with the interview itself, the Prime Video three-part series also explores the lead-up to the interview and its aftermath. Collider recently got the opportunity to chat for this one-on-one interview with Sheen about why he was drawn to playing the real-life polarizing figure, how to make a story like this satisfying for an audience, his own responsibility in playing Prince Andrew, shooting the 20-minute interview scene as one shot, and the pressure of getting that moment exactly right.

Michael Sheen Wanted To Explore Less Familiar Sides of Prince Andrew in ‘A Very Royal Scandal’
Image via Prime Video

Collider: These kinds of projects are so interesting because you feel like you know everything about what you’re going to be watching. And then, you realize that you don’t, and you get so caught up in it.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah, exactly. That’s certainly what drew me to it. What is so powerful about something like this is that you take something that you think you’re so familiar with, or people that you think you’re so familiar with, and in the hands of a writer like Jeremy [Brock], or in the past, things I’ve done with Peter Morgan, they’re able to then go, “Oh, you think you know this well? How about seeing it from this point of view?” And I think that’s so satisfying for an audience.

In thinking about whether or not to do this, what were the initial thoughts that went through your head?

SHEEN: Weirdly, the very same things that make it daunting are also the things that make it attractive. It is that familiarity. It is that sense of, “Oh, I think I know this story. I think I know this person.” And then, it is all about whether the script delivers on going, “Well, here’s something you didn’t know.” As an actor, I’m not really interested in playing someone who is very familiar, and then you just see what’s familiar about them. There’s no interest in that. What you’re interested in is somehow giving the audience the feeling that the veil is being lifted and you’re being invited into the secret world of this person and that world. It’s the very familiarity that an audience has with the character you’re playing that is daunting. It makes you nervous because you think, “Are people gonna accept me as this person? Am I gonna be able to make people believe I am this person?” At the same time, it’s that same familiarity that makes you go, “I know we’ve got the ammunition here to subvert those expectations and that familiarity.” Funnily enough, it’s exactly the same qualities that make you feel both those sides of things.

Once you decide to jump in and do something like this, you have to feel comfortable with how you look and how you’re portraying him. What got you there?

SHEEN: The saying yes, taking on the role, and being part of the project is a much different thing than when I’m agreeing to do something that’s fictional. In the act of saying yes to it, you’re taking the responsibility of portraying real people and real events seriously enough. Is it appropriate, the way that you’re doing this? When I say yes, initially I have to trust that the script that I’ve read is doing that, and that the team who are going to be around me doing this will take responsibility for that and I can trust them. Once I say yes, I’m giving up the big picture. Then, I’m focusing on my character. There are all those things I have to let go of because it’s about just immersing myself in that character and trying to play someone as rounded as possible. If it’s someone who is revered, then I have to be prepared to show warts and all. If it’s someone who is already seen as a bit of a bad guy, I have to be prepared to show things where they show vulnerability. I’m taking on board my general responsibilities as an actor, rather than my responsibilities to that specific project. Given that I’m giving that up, in a way, I have to really take that seriously before I say yes.

Michael Sheen Had To Blend Fact With Fiction To Take On Prince Andrew in ‘A Very Royal Scandal’
Image via Prime Video

With anything where you’re playing a real person, but it’s also a TV series, it’s a combination of the real life of it all and the version of the person that you’re portraying.

SHEEN: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Part of what you’re being asked to do is suspend your disbelief and go with it and accept that what you’re seeing is what’s actually happening, in order to get the most out of the story. That’s one thing when it’s a fictional story, but when it’s based on real people, then obviously that’s a serious matter. The character I’m playing is partly based on the real person, then it’s partly the version in the script that Jeremy had written. Once I agree to do the project, I have to serve that script and that story more than I have to serve the real person. I have to believe that version on the page is something that I can serve and not be doing a disservice to the real person, even if it’s showing that person in problematic lights. I have to believe that. And then, it’s also a bit of me. As an actor, I have to find connections with the character, in order to bring that character to life on the screen and to get people to take the leap.

You’re essentially asking an audience to look out from behind the character’s eyes, so the more problematic that is for an audience, the bigger the challenge for the actor to try and get them to do that. I only have any chance of getting them to do that if I bring my own self to it. So, there’s an honesty and a reality and an authenticity to it. It’s an amalgamation of all those things. How much it resembles the real person, it’s very difficult to make that call, really, because it’s a lot of guesswork, particularly in the case of Andrew. There’s so much guess work that you have to do and there’s so much sifting between what is fact and what is fiction with him, anyway, aside from the issues that we’re looking at in this piece. And then, when you add what this is about, there is an unknowable mystery at the heart of it. I don’t know what he did or didn’t do. None of us do, apart from him, I guess.

Why Did ‘A Very Royal Scandal’ Co-Stars Michael Sheen and Ruth Wilson Want To Shoot the Prince Andrew Interview Without Cutting?

There’s also such an interesting layer added to this with a good chunk of this being the interview between these two people and really finding that relationship. What was it like to have Ruth Wilson to play off of?

SHEEN: One of the main things that drew me to this was to work with Ruth. I think she’s amazing. And then, of course, we only really get one scene together. It’s like when I did the film The Queen. You think it’s all about [Tony] Blair and the Queen, but we only had two scenes together. Everything else was on the phone. So, we were very aware when we came to do the interview in this. We were like, “This is the only time we actually get to do something together.” And also, the stakes were so high for the interview because it’s the heart of this piece. Even though screen time wise, it might not take up the majority of the time of the piece, but everything springs from it. It’s the heart of it. We were all very aware that, when we came to film it, so much was riding on how this went. Added to that, it was me and Ruth getting the opportunity to actually act with each other for pretty much the one and only time in the piece. Having watched the interview, literally hundreds and hundreds of times, each of us, nobody else has watched it as much as us, so it’s like becoming an expert on something and knowing something so intimately, but you can’t share that with anyone because nobody else knows it that well.

Suddenly, the two people who knew it the same got to share that together. It was like when you get two uber fans of something together and they get to talk to each other. That’s an incredibly thrilling thing. But then, also, we had an audience. There were all the other actors playing the other characters, the actors playing the crew, and then the actual crew, so it was a big audience. Depending on what your role was in the production, the stakes of how important it was were quite high, and we were both very aware of that, as well.

There were so many elements that came together during the interview. When we did it, for the first few takes, Ruth and I had asked if it would be possible to do the whole thing in one go, which was 20 minutes long. Even though the actual interview is an hour long, in our story, we only show 20 minutes of it. It was all gonna be chopped up and we were going to film it out of sequence, so Ruth and I felt it would be really useful for us to get to do it in one go. And so, the first four takes were 20 minutes each, which was extraordinary. It was crackling from the pressure of it. At long last, we got to do it. It was extraordinary. I’ll never forget doing that very first take. It was like doing a play more than a film. All that work and all that time we put in around this one thing, finally got to come out, and it was absolutely extraordinary.

A Very Royal Scandal is available to stream on Prime Video. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Prime Video