"The True Story Behind Netflix’s Prince Andrew Movie Scoop"
The Duke of York informed friends that the interview went extremely well shortly after Prince Andrew appeared on BBC Newsnight in 2019 to explain his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Only a few days after the contentious exchange, which featured absurd justifications and memorable one-liners, the Prince resigned from his royal duties due to the worldwide uproar it caused. Following it, the late Queen's alleged favourite child lost his royal patronage and military titles, and he largely vanished from view.
https://time.com/6963952/scoop-netflix-true-story/
The goal of Philip Martin's latest film, Scoop, is to analyse the infamous interview from the perspectives of the three women who made it possible. The book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews, written by former BBC guest booker Sam McAlister, whose sometimes-unappreciated work led her to the exclusive of a lifetime, serves as the basis for the newsroom drama, which is available to stream on Netflix as of today, April 5. Esme Wren, the Newsnight editor at the time, and host Maitlis, whose cool-headed style is a lesson in broadcast interviewing, are beside her.
"I've heard Andrew say the interview went well, but it clearly didn't. Martin tells TIME that "that seemed like very interesting territory for a drama to exist in." "After reading Sam's book, I thought it would be a fantastic approach to understand the story by seeing it from the perspective of the women who organised the interview."
Martin, who also directed episodes of the first two seasons of the Netflix series The Crown, said that by letting McAlister, an outsider, through the gates of Buckingham Palace, he had a new chance to reverse the dynamic he was used to.
THE FILM
In 2010, Scoop opens with British photojournalist Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells) trudging through New York City with camera equipment in hand in an attempt to get a clear picture of Prince Andrew paying Jeffrey Epstein a visit at his Manhattan estate. Following Epstein's release from prison in 2009 for soliciting prostitution from minors, Donnelly captured the now-famous image of Andrew and Epstein walking together during a chase through Central Park.
Martin states that "the story would have probably gone away" if the photo of Epstein and Andrew in the park hadn't been taken. Like in real life, the picture in the movie starts a chain of events that will take place over the course of the following ten years.
Nine years later, viewers get to see McAlister (Billie Piper), dressed in sunglasses, her hair styled like peroxide, and her boots covered in leopard print, as she arrives at the BBC's Central London headquarters. The BBC is struggling on its own, with new show cuts occurring across the board. While host and media titan Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) jokingly questions if they are all still employed, Editor Wren (Romola Garai) is working to keep her team afloat by landing big stories in a competitive media landscape.
McCalister takes a no-nonsense approach to her work and her coworkers, making an effort to schedule influential visitors, or as she puts it, "the people we can't just call up." This guiding idea is what motivates McCalister to turn a low-stakes email about a business function Andrew is hosting into the interview that would ultimately change his life.
When we first meet Andrew (Rufus Sewell), the royal who loves teddy bears, he is fighting to remove the tarnish on his reputation from his involvement with Epstein, which has caused the public to ignore any royal duties he may have. The plot offers a roadmap and the individual motivations that led each character there, even though viewers are aware that the film's central element is a damning interview. "Drama has the ability to transport you into the characters' emotional states, which sets it apart from a documentary or an original interview," says Martin.
Depicting real life figures
It's amazing how Piper changed into McAlister. From her London residence, McAlister tells TIME, "My boyfriend couldn't tell us apart." "The painstaking attention to detail that the crew and Billie herself put into the representation; she graciously spent a great deal of time getting to know me and obviously worked hard to capture my walk and my various intonations."
While Maitlis and Andrew are instantly recognisable, McAlister was unknown to the British public. In light of this, Sewell wore prosthetics to resemble Andrew, but he maintained the naturalness of his facial features to avoid interfering with his performance. Anderson adopted Maitlis's signature style, which included her smokey-eyed makeup, blonde bob hair, and contact lenses.
According to Martin, there was a thin line between meeting the aesthetic expectations of well-known personalities and succumbing to parody. "It just loses the spark of realism and drama if it's pure impersonation," he claims.
