A Very Royal Scandal star Michael Sheen reveals what he really thinks about Prince Andrew scandal - and how he prepared for 'ambiguous' role
Actor Michael Sheen – who plays Prince Andrew in a new drama about his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis – says that he has a private view about whether the Royal did or did not sleep with teenager Virginia Roberts.
Actor Michael Sheen – who plays Prince Andrew in a new drama about his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis – says that he has a private view about whether the Royal did or did not sleep with teenager Virginia Roberts.
Sheen says that he would do different takes of key scenes playing the Prince as having engaged with Roberts or not, but tried to allow the audience to find it ambiguous.
The show, A Very Royal Scandal, will stream on Prime Video from September 19 and was launched last night in London.
It hints that Prince Andrew might have slept with Roberts - now known as Virginia Giuffre - but thought it unimportant and forgotten about it.
Andrew has always strenuously denies the claims he sexually assaulted Roberts and in 2022 paid millions to her to settle a civil case out of court, saying he never met her.
In the dramatisation - which has not claimed to be fully factually accurate - the Duke of York is told about the story the Mail on Sunday was preparing to publish which showed, for the first time, the now famous image of him with his arm around Ms Roberts waist at Ghislaine Maxwells home.
Michael Sheen at a screening for A Very Royal Scandal at Ham Yard Hotel in London yesterday
(From left) Emily Maitlis, Michael Sheen, Ruth Wilson and executive producer Karen Thrussell attend the UK screening of A Very Royal Scandal at the Ham Yard Hotel in London yesterday
Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew and Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis in A Very Royal Scandal
The real-life BBC interview between Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew in November 2019
He is told that the newspaper will be repeating her claims that they slept together and says to an aide: How on earth is a bloke supposed to remember all the women hes bedded?
He is also depicted asking the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein for £125,000 to pay of former wife Fergies debts, and dancing with him in a nightclub alongside a young blonde woman.
In a flashback scene hes shown going upstairs at a house and into a bedroom from which female giggling is heard.
Sheen said last night that the programme preserves ambiguity around the question of whether anything physical happened between the prince and Miss Roberts, who was 17 in 2001 and said that she was trafficked for sex with the Prince by Epstein.
Prince Andrew settled out of court with her in 2022.
Sheen said: The challenge with the piece is that there is a mystery at the heart of it. We dont definitively know what happened.
Michael Sheen playing the Duke of York in Prime Videos new drama A Very Royal Scandal
I thought the way (writer) Jeremy (Brock) had depicted it was that by the time you get to the end you have a satisfying experience as an audience member, and yet you dont know. There is ambiguity.
For the actor I cant play ambiguity, I have to play specificity. I had to make decisions and choices which I never told anyone. I had to know.
I dont know whether what I decided to play was true or not, so I would not want to say anything or influence how people relate to it.
We would do certain key moments in certain scenes where I would do one take that leans into this a little bit and then do another take that leans into that a little bit …and find how far you can go before it leans into being a different story.
The three part drama follows the Netflix film Scoop which premiered earlier this year.
In Scoop, Gillian Anderson played Newsnight journalist Emily Maitlis and Billie Piper played fixer Sam McAlister, who has taken credit for landing the interview.
Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis in A Very Royal Scandal, which comes out on September 19
A Very Royal Scandal is produced by Maitlis and downgrades McAlisters role considerably. She is seen as one on a team who work together to get the interview, although the initial contact with Amanda Thirsk is hers.
The drama portrays the Prince as a boorish entitled oaf, prone to routinely shouting F*** off! at underlings.
At one point he challenges Thirsk to run across a garden and when he beats her he calls her a fatty.
Sheen said: It might surprise you to know that to prepare I lived with Andrew at Buckingham Palace for six months… No. Funny enough I didnt get much cooperation.
You have the script so Jeremy has done all the hard work. Then it was a case of watching everything I can and reading everything I can, trying to find the point of connection.
Whenever I play a character based on a real life person Im looking for the point of connection that hooks me in.
Michael Sheen playing the Duke of York in Prime Videos new drama A Very Royal Scandal
Here it was the footage of a when he came back from the Falklands and he is on the dockside with the rose in his mouth, the brave conquering hero returning.
He was really fit, really hot and everyone thinks you are great and it was all downhill from there, wasnt it? That journey was my hook in.
Maitlis said that she felt that the repercussions of the interview were still being felt.
She said: I think we can see the impact its had on Andrews life that was very sudden losing your titles, losing your royal duties, losing your uniform, losing the respect of the British public.
The question we are asking now is has it re set the shape of the monarchy in any form.
A Very Royal Scandal will stream on Prime Video from September 19
