Rufus gets into head of Andrew on show

About THAT car crash royal interview

course and it feels like watching a car crash in slow motion. It just throws up so many questions.” Taking on the role of Matlis, was daunting for Gillian, and one she had to make sure she got right. She poured over footage of her interviews to nail her mannerisms. She said: “Yeah, it’s a little bit more daunting but it’s really mostly similar to any time you take on a playing a real character in terms of the deep-dive that you might do. Fortunately with someone like Emily who is so much in the public eye, there’s a lot of footage out there that you get to watch. I was also very lucky to have lots of face-to-face time with her so there was a lot of listening, watching and observing mannerisms. I have been a big fan of Emily’s for a while so it was a joy to step into her shoes.

“Part of it was definitely the holding of the Bic pen and the way she gesticulates with her hands. But Emily is interesting because sometimes she talks very fast, and sometimes she slows everything right down so it was about feeling confident in being able to give both versions of that without feeling that.

“I did a lot of paying attention to Emily’s mannerisms, things like when she looked up and when she looks at her notes. It was a drag when I saw how many times she looks down at her notes in the film because it looks like I might be looking at my lines (laughs). I didn’t. I wasn’t reading my lines!”

The actual depiction of the interview is a small part of the film and Gillian said she and co-star Sewell, who wore prosthetics to look like the Prince, did a great job at portraying him and the intensity of that interview.

Intense

She said: “Rufus and I prepared separately so it felt like a big moment. The interview itself was 50 minutes long, our version of it is about ten minutes long so it’s like a more compressed and intense version.

“But I really enjoyed it and I think Rufus did an incredible job.”

Gillian, who played mum and sex therapist Jean in Sex Education, is enjoying acclaim for her latest role, but she find fans still want to speak to her about a part she played some 20 years ago — Dana Scully.

She said: “I still get a lot of X-Files. But I don’t really get recognised in public. It’s weird. Sometimes I don’t get recognised in places where you’d think I would and then in places where you’d swear to God they’d never seen anything ever, I do get recognised.”