1 week Ago By Lily Ford
confesses it was daunting becoming in ‘s , a series following the infamous BBC interview with the Duke about his relationship with convicted sex offender . Sheen ( , , ) stars alongside Ruth Wilson ( , ), playing British journalist Emily Maitlis, after she and Andrew came together for one hour on a fateful night in 2019 to produce what is now mostly considered a huge stain on the monarchy’s already-blotted reputation. The Duke of York was probed on accusations he had sex with Virginia Giuffre (then Roberts) at Epstein’s house when she was just 17 in the early 2000s.
The Welsh actor tells that portraying any real-life person is “daunting” in itself, but a member even more so when the research involves a lot of guesswork and relying on “the person who used to be a security guard.” “One of the big challenges with with playing Prince Andrew compared to a lot of the people I’ve played,” he begins, “is it’s a hall of mirrors with Prince Andrew. The royal family is so controlled with what gets out.
So you’ve got, on the one hand, very stage-managed photographs and interviews and personal appearances, and then you’ve got, gossip and rumor and, ‘The person who used to be security guard said...
’ And you don’t know what people’s agendas are.” Sheen explains that it gets particularly tricky portraying a royal because there’s “a mystery at the heart” of who Andrew is – and, crucially, “what he did or didn’t do.” “I mean, we can have strong feelings, instincts, opinions about what that might be, but in terms of the nitty gritty, the nuts and bolts of what he did, we don’t know,” he says.
“So given that I don’t know, I did still have to make certain choices myself, just so I could play something specific in the scenes. Now, I will never tell anyone what those choices are because they have no bearing on the reality of it one way or the other, really, and it could only really serve to maybe influence the way people watch what I’m doing, and I’d rather that it retain its sort of ambiguity.” But the star steered clear of impersonating the Duke for as long as possible as he found it makes a better experience for viewers.
“Ultimately, you want the audience to engage with what’s going on for the character, not to be too bothered about what’s on the surface and all those things like mannerisms, vocal and physical things,” he says. “For someone who the audience feels they know so well, they’re coming at it with preconceived ideas and preconceptions about what they look like, what they sound like, what they come across as,” Sheen explains to . “So, that’s daunting, because you know you’re going to be judged by that.
” Sheen recalls watching the interview himself, all the way back in 2019 – before for an undisclosed fee. “It is now harder for me to remember what I thought or felt at the time because, because I’ve obviously watched it literally hundreds and hundreds of times now,” he says. “I do remember not having a hot take on it, I just felt the way everyone felt about it: ‘What was that? How on earth did that ever happen?'” Now 55, nine years Andrew’s junior, Sheen has grown up following the Duke’s generation of royal family members.
“Back when I was growing up in the ’80s, he was tabloid fodder all the time,” the actor says. “‘Randy Andy’ and, you know, his relationships. And he was this ruggedly handsome war hero, a prince who was the most eligible bachelor on the scene.
[But that] has diminished, he’s one of the least known in that respect, and yet, at the same time, one of the most seemingly familiar because he had that reputation.” He enjoyed grappling with a man who has lost so much over the years, one who was once incredibly “attractive” and often regarded as Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite child. “So popular, thousands of women shouting and screaming when he comes off the dock, coming back from the Falklands War with a rose in his mouth,” Sheen continues.
“To see a man age, put on weight and start losing all that whilst getting further and further away from the center of power, to have money problems when you’re seen as having everything, and to feel like you don’t get treated the way you should get treated for a man of immense privilege, that contradiction is golden for an actor and to have.” “I mean, he clearly is a character and that was part of the treasure hunt for me,” he adds. premieres exclusively on Prime Video in the U.
S., U.K.
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