Prince Andrew‘s Newsnight interview has gone down in history as one of the most bizarre, horribly hilarious, and overall disheartening interviews in recent British media. Journalist Emily Maitlis has been applauded for her interview work opposite the disgraced royal, who went on to dig himself larger and larger holes as he went on. Oh to be a fly on the wall of Buckingham Palace’s PR office that day.
If you aren’t acquainted with the interview, here’s a reminder.
Soon, we’ll be able to relive these simultaneously glorious and horrifying moments in more detail, as Netflix announces plans to retell the events in a movie. Titled Scoop, it will be adapted from McAlister’s book, Scoops: Behind The Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews, which spilt details about what happened behind closed doors of the interview. The 50-minute-long interview is widely touted as the end of Andrew’s public role, after which he was stripped from many of his royal patronages and no longer allowed to represent the royal family in public.
Netflix’s Scoop cast
Scoop will star Sex Education‘s Gillian Anderson as Maitlis herself, opposite Old‘s Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew. They will be joined by Doctor Who‘s Billie Piper as TV producer Sam McAlister, who negotiated and secured the interview, and the BBC’s darling of drama Keeley Hawes as Andrew’s former private secretary Amanda Thirsk.
The Crown director Philip Martin will also join the project, alongside producers Hilary Salmon and Radford Neville.
“I’m thrilled to be directing this film for Netflix and—together with an extraordinary cast—to be bringing Sam McAlister’s revelatory insider’s account to the screen” Martin told Variety. “Uptempo, immersive and cinematic, I want to put the audience inside the breath-taking sequence of events that led to the interview with Prince Andrew—to tell a story about a search for answers, in a world of speculation and varying recollections. It’s a film about power, privilege and differing perspectives and how—whether in glittering palaces or hi-tech newsrooms—we judge what’s true.”
The stellar cast combined with a truly outlandish series of events, from the reveal of why the prince physically can’t sweat (ew) to the drama related to the Woking Pizza Express, promises to make for a fascinating movie. All four actors have proven they can take to serious roles like a duck to water and I for one can’t wait to see the tumultuous events from McAlister’s book brought to life.
Netflix’s Scoop release window
There’s no official word on the movie’s release window just yet, as the announcement came through on February 7, 2023. However, since casting seems finalized and production is apparently already underway, we should expect the film to make its debut in the next couple of years.
(featured image: Mark Harrison/BBC)
