Rufus Sewell reveals biggest ‘temptation’ he had to resist playing Prince Andrew in Scoop

Rufus Sewell and Keeley Hawes have, perhaps, an unenviably delicate balance to strike when it comes to talking about their involvement with Scoop, the Netflix adaptation of Prince Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview.

The Duke of York’s televised sit-down with former BBC journalist Emily Maitlis in 2019, where she probed him about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, ended up signalling the end of his public life as a working royal.

Less than five years later and we already have a star-studded film version of events, with an impressively transformed Sewell as Andrew, Gillian Anderson as Maitlis and Billie Piper as Sam McAlister, the booker-turned-producer who clinched the fated opportunity.

When we talk, Sewell is conducting a round of interviews with Hawes, who plays Andrew’s former private secretary Amanda Thirsk, the aide who led his Pitch@Palace entrepreneurship venture and is believed to have encouraged him to accept the Newsnight offer.