Rufus Sewell Is Hungry For a Challenge
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
“Over the last few years, I’ve been trying to dodge parts that are similar and trying to find something interesting,” Rufus Sewell tells me over Zoom. The 56-year-old actor is describing a dreaded occupational hazard: Typecasting. Throughout his career, Sewell has played the dashing leading man, in shows and films such as The Trouble with Jessica, Old, Kaleidoscope, and Netflix’s political thriller, The Diplomat.
Then, Netflix offered Sewell what would end up as one of the biggest challenges of his career: portraying Prince Andrew’s fall from grace in the streamer's new movie, Scoop. The film, which premieres today, spotlights Prince Andrew’s bombshell interview on BBC's Newsnight, which examined his friendship with Jeffery Epstein and sexual assault allegations. At the time, Prince Andrew agreed to the questioning in hopes of restoring his reputation—but his efforts were futile. When asked about his relationship with Epstein, Andrew claimed they didn’t spend much time together, though records show that he often stayed at Epstein’s residencies, flew on his private jets, attended his parties, and once visited his private island—all while Epstein acquired young girls for sex trafficking. Andrew was also asked about the allegations brought against him by Virginia Giufree, a victim of Epstein’s, who claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was 17.
After the episode aired, Andrew was stripped of his royal titles. Meanwhile, Newsnight was celebrated for holding him accountable as a public figure. In Scoop, viewers see the work it took to pull the infamous interview together. The film is directed by Phillip Martin and adapted from Sam McAllister’s 2022 novel, Scoops: Behind the Scenes of BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews. Sewell is joined by a stellar cast, including Billie Piper—who plays McAllister in the feature—and Gillian Anderson, who stars as Newsnight’s lead journalist, Emily Maitlis.
For Sewell, playing Andrew was no simple feat. “I said yes very quickly, and then I thought, Fuck, what did I just say yes to?" After reading the script, his nerves settled. The team behind Scoop wanted to construct a story that was engaging, sure—but one that treated the victims with grace and held the perpetrators accountable. It’s something the media world could stand to take a tip or two from nowadays, after the frenzy that preceded Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis.“They managed to construct something with the script that was thrilling and exciting without being inappropriate,” Sewell continues. “It has moments of lightness and humor, which is difficult to do when you’re dealing with a subject of such darkness and importance.
Below, Sewell chats with Esquire about recreating Prince Andrew’s interview, whether or not he’ll return in The Diplomat season 2, and the media’s ever-turbulent relationship with the royal family.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
ESQUIRE: Do you remember watching Prince Andrew’s Newsnight Interview in 2019?
RUFUS SEWELL: I didn't watch the interview live, but I saw clips—like everyone did—and watched it with a grim fascination. That was part of the reason why I accepted the role. The interview was a clash of so many things. It was impossible to look away, but difficult to look at. Also, in the interview, Prince Andrew loses his powers of persuasion, and you find that somebody who thinks that he's devastatingly charismatic is, in fact, not.
In Scoop, Andrew lacks a lot of self-awareness, too. After the interview, he watches himself and thinks he did a great job.
Those are the things that fascinated me—there’s a strange mixture of lies and truth, which, as humans, is what we do. People can use the truth to lie, and oftentimes, that’s what people will do. They’ll focus on one thing and try to lead you away from another.
[During the interview], you can see the things he’s rehearsed, possibly with a more forgiving audience or maybe on his own. He is someone who believes himself to be a victim. Perpetrators can see themselves as victims, and victims can see themselves as guilty—you know what the brain does to itself. This is someone who really thinks he’s got a way out of this. There are lines he’s worked out and that he’s pretending to think of in the moment. There’s a lot of play-acting. There’s a lot of pretending to be a real stickler for facts when, really, what he’s doing is an attempt at sleight of hand.
Did you and Phillip Martin discuss that characterization, or did you craft it on your own?
That's what I felt instinctively while watching it, and I think other people did, too. People are very perceptive of things they might not be able to put into words. That’s what made it such a watercooler moment.
Given how heavily some journalists speculated about Kate Middleton’s health, it’s an interesting time to discuss the media’s relationship with the royal family. Their investigation in Scoop is vital, but that’s not always the case. What’s the line between sensationalizing coverage and fair reporting?
It's a very, very slippery slope, and there's a lot of sanctimony and bullshit spoken about this. Recently, it’s not just the press; it’s people who’ve been speculating as a form of entertainment, and that necessitates the dehumanization of whoever you’re talking about. There’s nothing new about that. It’s just on a larger scale.
One of the interesting parts of playing Andrew was trying to find the line between someone who has been treated as better than a normal human [by the public and the royal family] and trying to represent him as though they’re not less than a normal human. One of my concerns in playing the part was how to walk that line. I did a lot of research and tried to find interviews of him where he was at his best—the moments people talked about when they spoke of him fondly.
It’s really easy to forget that now. But if you watch a lot of [old] footage of him, working with people, visiting factories, and hanging out, you see he was actually quite good at it—and sometimes comes across very well.
It’s tempting to leave out those bumpy bits. There’s always the fear that you’re going to be criticized for condemning or defending someone.
It’s sometimes hard to figure out the appropriate way to engage with celebrities.
George Clooney once spoke about a motorbike accident where everyone thought he was dead. He just saw all these grinning faces of people videoing it, and it showed him that it [the attention] may seem like love, but it's not. It’s a sport. None of us are above it. I’m not speaking from some social distance—it's something I recognize in myself sometimes.
Relive Prince Andrew's BBC Interview
Let’s talk about the interview scene. It’s a near-exact replica of the BBC interview. What was filming that like?
At first, I wasn't very comfortable thinking about it. [Replicating the interview] was quite a frightening thought, but then we got started, and I found comfort in immersing myself in the work. One of the reasons I worked so hard was because when I wasn't working, it made me nervous.
I spent a lot of time looking at the video, and I would watch it like a hawk for every detail. Not just the things he said, but the things he looked like he was about to say. The changes in direction, the stutters, the half-words. I wasn’t just memorizing the script; I listened to and watched the interview obsessively. When I went on long drives, that would be my mixtape. I would just talk along with it, and then when I came back to the script, I realized how much wasn’t in there. It had been cleaned up. I made a great appeal to have some of the things that were regarded as unnecessary put back in because oftentimes, I found that’s where the meaning and intent were. A lot of the physical and vocal hiccups is where the meat lay.
Anyway, we came to the first day of filming, and Phillip Martin had scheduled it, so it was the first thing we did. We shot the interview for two days with minimal rehearsal. They'd mocked up that room in the palace, and everything looked exactly the same. I was wearing the same clothes, and [Anderson] was wearing the same clothes. It felt strangely real.
Before you go, I have to ask about The Diplomat. Can you share anything about season 2?
I would like the show to continue as long as it can—with or without me. It's so well cast, it's such a fun show to be in, and it's one of those things that plays like it reads. One of the delights [of acting] is to read something, have a gut feeling about it, then turn up [to the job], and it feels right. Then, you watch it, and it’s what you imagined. That’s not always the case. In the past, I’ve been vaguely frightened of being committed to an ongoing role–but I don’t think any of us felt this way about this.
You Might Also Like
