My Prince Andrew will not be a hatchet job, says actor Sheen

WITH not one but two dramatisations of his public fall from grace about to air on the world’s biggest streaming services, the Duke of York could be forgiven for feeling a little nervous.

The combined audience of the Amazon and Netflix shows, which will both tell the story of his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview about the Epstein scandal, is likely to far surpass those who watched the original, with the court of public opinion still in session.

The Duke may breathe a small sign of relief, then, after actor Michael Sheen promised he would not be doing a “hatchet job”. Sheen, who will star as the Duke in A Very Royal Scandal, a three-part series from Amazon Studios, said he will play him with “humanity”.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Sheen said he had thought hard about why he had agreed to play the Duke. “Inevitably you bring humanity to a character – that’s certainly what I try to do,” he said. “I don’t want people to say ‘It was Sheen who got everybody behind Andrew again.’ But I also don’t want to do a hatchet job.”

Asked what he was trying to do with the portrayal, Sheen added: “Well, it is a story about privilege, really. And how easy it is for privilege to exploit.

“We’ve found a way of keeping the ambiguity, because, legally, you can’t show stuff that you cannot prove, but whether guilty or not, his privilege is a major factor in whatever exploitation was going on.

Beyond the specifics of Andrew and Epstein, no matter who you are, privilege has the potential to exploit someone. For Andrew, it’s: ‘This girl is being brought to me and I don’t really care where she comes from, or how old she is, this is just what happens for people like me.’”

A Very Royal Scandal is executive produced by Emily Maitlis, who interviewed the Duke for Newsnight in 2019. In their encounter he said he did not regret his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein – by then a convicted paedophile who died in jail before he went on trial for sex trafficking minors – because it was “actually very useful”.

It also created a host of headlines about a visit to Pizza Express, his inability to sweat, and his claim that he was “too honourable”. The Duke stepped down from public duty shortly afterwards and has not returned.

The drama stars Ruth Wilson as Maitlis, Joanna Scanlan as the Duke’s private secretary Amanda Thirsk and Alex Jennings as Sir Edward Young, Elizabeth II’S private secretary.

Netflix is also producing a film, Scoop, about the same moment in royal history, based on the account of Sam Mcalister, the producer who helped secure the interview. In that, the Duke will be played by Rufus Sewell and Maitlis by Gillian Anderson. Mcalister will be played by Billie Piper and Amanda Thirsk by Keeley Hawes.

Mcalister recently told The Telegraph that film will not be a hatchet job either. “We don’t take a side – we’re not saying, ‘Oh, isn’t he great,’ or, ‘Oh, isn’t he evil’,” she said. “It’s for the viewer to draw their own inferences.”

Both shows are in production, due out later this year.

‘Inevitably you bring humanity to a character – that’s certainly what I try to do’