How Michael Sheen became Prince Andrew for A Very Royal Scandal: 'I had to make a judgment'

What was Prince Andrew thinking? That was the question on the mind of the millions who tuned into his now-infamous 2019 BBC interview, and that became the central concern for actor Michael Sheen, who portrays the royal in A Very Royal Scandal, which dramatises the events that led to his public downfall.

“As an actor, I have to know what my character's done or not done. I can't play scenes where he just doesn't know – like he's like an amnesiac or something. So I had to make choices,” Sheen tells The National.

To this day, five years on from the Duke of York’s hour-long on-air sit down with BBC journalist Emily Maitlis, the reclusive Prince Andrew remains somewhat of a mystery. Virginia Giuffre’s sexual assault case against him was settled in 2022, sparing him a trial, but effectively ending his public life.

The series, which premieres on Friday on the Tod streaming platform in the Middle East, sticks to what is public knowledge – refraining from judgement on what crimes Prince Andrew did or did not commit.

But to play him, Sheen, 55, had to make a judgment, he believes. The actor has made a name for himself over the past 20 years, portraying real-life figures such as Tony Blair (The Queen) and David Frost (Frost/Nixon), and is acclaimed for his ability to display layers of truth behind his characters, rather than doing a simple caricature. To play Prince Andrew, Sheen studied him deeply and came to a conclusion about what he thinks really happened – and then kept his choice a secret throughout the shoot.

“I’ve never told anybody what those choices were. I have no idea whether those choices bear any resemblance to reality – but in a way that doesn’t matter. The audience is thinking about the mystery – and I’m not there to help them solve it. You’ll constantly be thinking, is he remembering what he actually did, or does he genuinely not know what any of this is about? And I was very aware that was going to be a very powerful element in the piece,” says Sheen.

For Sheen, an important piece of the Prince Andrew puzzle was the footage of his return to Portsmouth Harbour from the Falklands War onboard the HMS Invincible in 1982. Sheen felt it was particularly indicative of the journey that he had been on in his life, which he feels was a steady decline.

“There’s footage of him coming off the ship to the dockside, and there are thousands of people screaming for him – women mainly. He gets off, and he’s in uniform – the returning hero. He’s a prince. He’s good looking. He’s got a rose between his teeth that he gives to his mother, the queen. He was at an absolute high point, and to see a man who goes from that to moving further and further away from the centre of power, into a position of what they call the spare – the brother who will likely never ascend to the throne – he loses himself,” says Sheen.

“That footage gave me a sense of a man who feels that he’s lost so much. And the irony is, he appears to everyone else as a man who has so much. But to himself, he perceives all that’s been taken away – and sees that as an injustice being done to him. He feels he deserves things, and that mentality starts to underpin everything, and made everything clearer to me.”

But there’s another element to figuring out how to play a real-life character – perhaps the most important one of all – Sheen himself. The actor had a real person at his disposal – not one he ever contacted to portray him – and he had what was on the page, but he also had to do a lot of soul searching in order to find truth in his performance.

“It’s about being honest with yourself, really. I have Prince Andrew, I have the script, and then I have myself – and I drew from all three things to create this character, and no one is more important than the other,” says Sheen.

“That meant exploring my own sense of privilege; my own history of relationships with women. I had to explore feelings about being exploitative, or having status or power – the many things that can create an imbalance in relationships – even if you’re not aware of it, just because of your privilege. If you don’t do that, then this would be a lesser performance for me. Without points of connection – even if they’re not as extreme as the character you’re playing – you’ll fail. Those are the places you have to go if you agree to play a character like this,” he continues.

For actress Ruth Wilson, on the other hand, who portrays Emily Maitlis, the key to figuring out her character was not the extensive conversations she had with the journalist in real life, nor the interview footage, but the contents of her handbag.

"I asked her to open her bag, and it was sleeping pills, an eye mask, her passports. There were actually loads of different sort of pills for various illnesses or headaches or anything else. What it told me is that she was always ready to leave if a story broke. Actors have a team of people to take care of them, but journalists have to take care of themselves. And her energy is headed constantly forward," Wilson explains, which put her at natural odds with a man who is seemingly stuck in the past.

Did either of them capture the true hearts of the people they played? They'll never know for sure. But for Sheen in particular, the joy is in trying.

"I'll use that same word again – privilege. It is a great privilege to be able to still tell stories for a living. I mean, that's it. There's nothing better," says Sheen.

A Very Royal Scandal premieres on Tod on Friday