£70 for a frying pan, Rufus? That Andrew role must pay well
FOR Prince Andrew, the backlash from the notorious Newsnight interview about his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein must have felt like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Now Rufus Sewell, who plays Andrew in a new Netflix drama about the interview, almost seems to be rubbing it in for the Royal – by being pictured buying his own frying pan, for as much as £70.
Sewell, 56, who wore heavy prosthetics to play the disgraced Duke in Scoop, was spotted shopping in west London this week.
Given his rave reviews for the behind-the-scenes story of the BBC Newsnight exclusive, Sewell needn’t worry about his performance being panned. The drama is based on a book by Sam McAlister, the Newsnight producer who secured the 2019 interview.
She is played by Billie Piper, with Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis, who interrogated Andrew. Keeley Hawes is Andrew’s aide and Charity Wakefield plays the Prince’s daughter Beatrice.
Sewell, who has also starred in The Holiday and The Diplomat, said he nearly turned down the role of Andrew because he was not ‘a natural mimic’.
‘It took a lot of methodical work, obsessive watching and listening,’ he told GQ magazine. ‘But I always felt that I could get there.’ He spent hours listening to the original Newsnight interview and learning the Prince’s speech and mannerisms to replicate them.
‘His dialect is very specifically him,’ he said. ‘It’s not like Charles or Anne. It took a while to pin down; it’s a colloquial looseness.’
He was transformed with ‘layers and layers’ of prosthetics, a bald cap and a ‘wispy white wig’.
‘And a little bit of padding, but not too much,’ he added. In the interview, Andrew sought to defend his friendship with Epstein amid claims over his relationship with 17-year-old Virginia Guiffre.
But it led to headlines around the world when he made a series of bizarre claims including one that he had been in a Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, on the night he was said to have been in a London club with Ms Guiffre.