Filming has begun on Scoop , a Netflix film that will tell the story of the making of the famous interview given to the BBC Newsnight program by Prince Andrew.
His younger brother of King Charles III, regarding his friendship with the controversial American financier Jeffrey Epstein , convicted of exploiting the prostitution. Gillian Anderson has joined the cast and will play Emily Maitlis , the reporter who conducted the interview. Rufus Sewell will be Prince Andrew instead.
The cast will also include Keeley Hawes as Amanda Thirsk , former secretary to the prince, and Billie Piper as Sam McAlister , Newsnight producer who negotiated the interview with Andrea and whose memoir Scoops: Behind The Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews the film is based. Directed by Philip Martin ( The Crown ), and filming has already begun.
Scoop will focus on the women who managed to work their way through the vetoes of Buckingham Palace, to Prince Andrew’s inner circle, to negotiate with him an interview that would have caused the decline of what, according to public opinion, was the “favorite son” of Queen Elizabeth II. The film will show the interview itself, to highlight the tenacity of the journalists who organized it against the palace’s reluctance. In short, it will be the story of the internal machinations of Buckingham Palace and the BBC, two pillars of the British establishment.
Martin said:
I am thrilled to direct this film for Netflix and – together with an extraordinary cast – to be able to bring Sam McAlister’s revealing reporting to the screen. […] I want to immerse the viewer in the breathtaking sequence of events that led to the interview with Prince Andrew, to tell the story of a search for answers, in a world of speculation and inconsistent reconstructions. It will be a film about power, privilege and divergent perspectives, and about how – both in glitzy palaces and tech newsrooms – we judge what is true.