‘Scoop’: From Prince Andrew to Emily Maitlis, Comparing the Cast of the New Netflix Film With Their Real-Life Counterparts

Netflix’s Scoop recounts a recent slice of British history that many know well: Prince Andrew’s disastrous interview with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis in 2019—the one in which the Duke of York, facing tough questions about his association with Jeffrey Epstein, spoke about his inability to sweat, his fateful visit to Pizza Express in Woking, and described his former friend’s conduct as, er, “unbecoming,” eventually resulting in him having to step back from his public duties. Except, this is the story you don’t know: directed by The Crown’s Philip Martin and penned by Peter Moffat, it follows the women who fought to secure the global exclusive and hold the embattled royal to account.

Among them is, of course, the quietly commanding Maitlis herself, who took a restrained but incisive approach to the interrogation which left her subject utterly exposed, but also the booker who convinced the prince and his private secretary to agree to the interview, as well as the editor who oversaw proceedings and got sign-off from the bosses of the BBC before the program aired. As for who plays them? A who’s who of British acting talent, of course, with an American thrown in for good measure.

Ahead of the film’s release on April 5, we compare the formidable cast to their distinguished real-life counterparts.

Gillian Anderson as Emily MaitlisPhotos: Netflix/Newsnight

No stranger to playing prominent public figures in Netflix’s buzziest royal dramas, the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning American screen legend (who was raised partly in London—hence the adaptable accent) swaps Margaret Thatcher’s helmet hair and retina-searing blue suits in The Crown for a sleek bob and subdued tailoring to take the part of the BBC veteran who eviscerated Prince Andrew with her rigorous questioning. Unlike the more combative styles of her contemporaries Jeremy Paxman and Andrew Neil, Maitlis was respectful while also being forensic in her examination of the accusations against the duke, catching him off guard and creating infinitely gripping TV in the process.

After three years as the lead presenter of Newsnight, she left the national broadcaster in 2022 to launch her own podcast, The News Agents, with her former colleague Jon Sopel. She is also executive producing A Very Royal Scandal, a forthcoming miniseries about her infamous interview and its aftermath, in which she’ll be portrayed by Ruth Wilson opposite Michael Sheen’s Prince Andrew.

Rufus Sewell as Prince AndrewPhotos: Netflix/Newsnight

With elaborate prosthetics and a wispy white wig, the Emmy-nominated British actor—The Holiday’s roguish heartthrob, more recently seen in Judy, The Father, and The Diplomat—is unrecognizable as the Duke of York, as he fumbles his way through the interview that upended his life. In it, the Queen’s favorite son, under fire for his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, described the “straightforward shooting weekend” he enjoyed with the disgraced financier, his own tendency to be “too honorable,” and his decision, after Epstein’s conviction, to fly across the Atlantic just to tell him that they could no longer be seen together. (Unfortunately, this trip resulted in them being seen together.)

He and his aides apparently thought it’d all gone rather well but, after the segment aired to widespread fury and ridicule, he stepped back from royal duties for the foreseeable future and was stripped of his military affiliations and royal patronages. In 2022, the case made against him by Virginia Giuffre—who alleged that she’d been sex trafficked to him by Epstein as a 17-year-old—was settled out of court, with the duke paying the plaintiff an undisclosed sum. He said he regretted his association with Epstein, but denied any wrongdoing.

Billie Piper as Sam McAlisterPhotos: Netflix/Getty Images

At the heart of Scoop, however, is neither Maitlis nor Prince Andrew, but Sam McAlister, a trained barrister and the Newsnight booker who secured the interview, as embodied by an icy blonde Billie Piper (Doctor Who, I Hate Suzie, all-round national treasure). Dressed in giant sunglasses with gold hoops, leather trousers, and leopard-print booties, she’s a force of nature, shown tottering into the BBC offices late, sipping her comically large Starbucks, and shooting off emails to some of the most influential people in the world. She’s early in approaching Prince Andrew and understanding that the Epstein story will only get bigger, and somehow manages to persuade both the duke and his private secretary that going on air is the only way for them to reclaim the narrative.

Following the success of the interview, she penned Scoops: The BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews from Steven Seagal to Prince Andrew, an account of her 12 years at the broadcaster, which forms the basis for the new film. She left the organization in 2021 and is currently a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics, teaching negotiation.

Keeley Hawes as Amanda ThirskPhotos: Netflix/Getty Images

The London-born star of Bodyguard and The Durrells (and Matthew Macfadyen’s wife!) plays the other central figure in this saga: Amanda Thirsk, the Duke of York’s private secretary of seven years, who agreed to a meeting with Sam McAlister and signed off on her boss’s decision to do the interview. It was reported that she believed Prince Andrew’s Newsnight appearance could help distance him from Epstein and win back public support, and that she clashed with other aides on the matter. After the program aired, she was forced to step down from her role.

Connor Swindells as Jae DonnellyPhotos: Netflix/WNYC

After Sex Education and Barbie, the rising star takes on the part of Jae Donnelly, the New York-based British paparazzo who went to great lengths to snap that unforgettable image of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein walking together in Central Park in 2010, shortly after the latter’s release from prison. Despite staying several days at the felon’s New York townhouse, the Duke of York maintained that the visit was designed to end their friendship, but instead of putting the story to bed, it sparked outrage. Almost a decade later, the photo still haunted him—and the Newsnight interview was a failed attempt to move on from it, once and for all.

Romola Garai as Esme WrenPhotos: Netflix/Getty Images

Esme Wren, the editor of Newsnight who spearheaded the team which secured the bombshell interview, is played by the BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated period drama stalwart, who’s enchanted audiences in everything from Emma and Vanity Fair to Suffragette. Wren, who spent three years running the BBC current affairs show and established an all-female line-up of presenters for it for the first time in its history, helped Maitlis prepare for the encounter and liaised with the broadcaster’s bosses to ensure they could air the segment in full. After it hit screens, her leadership was celebrated, and she appeared, alongside Maitlis, on the cover of the Radio Times, an extremely rare occurrence for a behind-the-scenes operator. In 2021, she left the BBC to become the new head of Britain’s Channel 4 News.

Charity Wakefield as Princess BeatricePhotos: Netflix/Getty Images

The Great’s Charity Wakefield dons a headband and puff-sleeved dress to play Prince Andrew’s eldest daughter, who was dragged into the Newsnight debacle when the duke claimed that he could not have been in a nightclub with his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, because he had “taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party” on the same day. He said he remembered it clearly because “going to Pizza Express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do.” Cue an endless flood of memes, and later, a source close to the princess telling tabloids that she had “absolutely no recall whatsoever” of the party in question because she went to “any number” of meals at that specific restaurant as a schoolgirl. Prior to the media storm, however, she is said to have sat in on a meeting with her father and the Newsnight team before he agreed to take part.

Lia Williams as Fran UnsworthPhotos: Getty Images

Signing off on the interview alongside the BBC’s director general Tony Hall was Fran Unsworth, BBC News’s director of news and current affairs since 2018. The pair were among the first to view the explosive footage and made the call to broadcast it. In 2022, Unsworth finally departed the organization after 40 years.

In Scoop, we first meet her as she’s overseeing a large-scale restructure at the BBC, with programs like Newsnight facing significant cuts. In the end, though, the interview with Prince Andrew is used as a marker of the show’s value, and goes some way to justifying its budget. Playing Unsworth is BAFTA nominee Lia Williams, who has a reputation for embodying steely public facing figures: The Crown’s glamorous Wallis Simpson, The Capture’s icy DSU Gemma Garland, and the vilified CEO of the Post Office, Paula Vennells, in Mr Bates vs The Post Office.