IIn the moments after Prince Andrew sat down with BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis in 2019 to rationalize the nature of his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Duke of York told friends the interview went very well.
The controversial exchange – full of outlandish explanations and quoted one-liners – caused a global storm and led to the prince stepping down from royal duties just days later. Subsequently, the so-called favorite child of the late Queen was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages and generally disappeared from the public eye.
Now spoon, a new film from director Philip Martin aims to dissect the infamous interview through the lens of the three women who made it possible. The newsroom drama – which airs on Netflix from today (April 5) – is based on the book Scoops: Behind the scenes of the BBC’s most shocking interviews, by ex-BBC guest booker Sam McAllister, whose sometimes thankless job led her to the Lifetime Exclusive. She is joined by then-Newsnight editor Esme Wren and presenter Maitlis, whose level-headed approach serves as a masterclass in the art of the broadcast interview.
“I heard Andrew thought the interview went well, but apparently it didn’t. That seemed like a very interesting territory for a drama to exist in,” Martin tells TIME. “I read Sam’s book and it just seemed like such a great way to get into the story, to look at it through the lens of the women who composed the interview.”
Martin, who also directed episodes of the first two seasons of the Netflix drama The crownsaid it was a new opportunity for him to reverse the dynamic he was familiar with by bringing an outsider in the person of McAllister through the gates of Buckingham Palace.
Read more: Prince Andrew has faced questions about Jeffrey Epstein for years. That’s why the royal family is finally reacting
The movie
spoon begins in 2010, when British photojournalist Jay Donnelly (Connor Swindells) hits the streets of New York with camera gear, hoping to capture a clear shot of Prince Andrew visiting Jeffrey Epstein at his Manhattan mansion. What follows is a chase through Central Park that brings Donnelly the now-infamous shot of Andrew and Epstein walking together after Epstein’s release from prison in 2009 for soliciting prostitution of minors.
“If it wasn’t for the photo of Epstein and Andrew in the park, the story probably would have disappeared,” says Martin. In film, as in life, the image sets in motion a series of events that will unfold over the next decade.
Nine years later, viewers are introduced to McAllister (Billie Piper), sporting sunglasses, peroxide curls and leopard-print boots, arriving at BBC headquarters in Central London. The BBC is facing its own challenges, with new cuts across all shows. Editor Ren (Romola Garai) tries to keep her team afloat by breaking big stories in a competitive media landscape, while anchor and journalistic titan Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) jokingly asks if they all still have jobs.
McCallister has a no-nonsense approach to her role and her colleagues, trying to book high-powered guests, or in her words, “the people we can’t just call.” It’s this guiding principle that led McCallister to turn a low-stakes email about a business event Andrew was hosting into an interview that changed his life forever.
When we meet Andrew (Rufus Sewell), the teddy bear-loving royal is struggling to escape the stain on his reputation from his involvement with Epstein, which has overshadowed any of his royal duties in the public mind. Although viewers know that the core of the film is a cursed interview, its plot provides a road map and the personal motivations that brought each figure there. “What drama can do, unlike a documentary or an original interview, is it can put you in the emotional space of the characters,” says Martin.
Depiction of real life figures
Piper’s transformation into McAllister is amazing. “My friend couldn’t tell us apart,” McAllister tells TIME from his home in London. “The careful detail that went into the performance by the team, but also by Billie herself, who generously spent a lot of time with me and obviously worked hard to get my different intonations, my gait, everything about me.”
While McAllister was unknown to the British public, Maitlis and Andrew are instantly recognizable figures. With this in mind, Sewell used prosthetics to look like Andrew, but the key contours of his face were kept clear so his performance was not hindered. Anderson took on Maitlis’ signature look with a blonde bob wig, contact lenses and her signature smoky makeup.
Martin says there was a fine line between representing the aesthetics of well-known figures without falling prey to parody. “If it’s pure mimicry, it just loses the spark of drama and the spark of realism,” he says.
The allegations against Prince Andrew
In 2015, Virginia Giuffre filed court documents alleging that Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell arranged sex for her with wealthy businessmen and dignitaries, including Prince Andrew, when she was 17 years old.
Then named Virginia Roberts, she claimed she was forced to have sex with Andrew at Epstein’s New York mansion, in London and on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands in 2001. However, mentions of Andrew were deleted from record when a US federal judge said it was “immaterial and impertinent to the central claim”.
In the affidavit, Giuffre also alleged that Maxwell worked as Epstein’s pimp, claims that led to Maxwell making defamatory statements about Giuffre. Giuffre sued Maxwell for defamation that year, but the case was settled and his records sealed in 2017, with Maxwell paying Giuffre millions.
In 2019, documents from the 2015 case were unsealed and Giuffre’s allegations against Andrew came to light. Although Andrew denied all the allegations against him and after the case was settled, the scandal continued to follow him.
Epstein was arrested again on multiple charges in July 2019 and found dead in his New York City jail cell a month later. At the time, Prince Andrew released a statement saying he regretted his “ill-judged relationship” with Epstein, adding that “his suicide left many questions unanswered, especially for his victims, and I feel deeply for all those who were affected and want some form of closure.”
How Sam McAllister got the interview
McAllister’s success as a TV booker lies in her tenacity and ability to keep an eye on the bigger picture. In the film, she liaises with Amanda Thirsk – Andrew’s befuddled private secretary – who initially contacted the BBC to arrange a “blowout” about Andrew’s charity work. After a year of back-and-forth, when Andrew decided to speak publicly about Epstein, Thirsk already had an understanding with McAllister.
But what is it about the real McAllister that has made her successful? “I’m a bit of a loner, she says. “I disobey. I don’t play by the rules. I don’t want to say that I play without integrity, but I’m not very interested in structures and hierarchies.”
McAllister says she was motivated by what was best for the program and the country, and her tenacity set her apart from others who missed history. She also says her socially mobile background, from growing up in public housing to becoming “resolutely” middle class, has taught her to mix with different circles and learn Britain’s unspoken social cues. “My mother taught me to associate with princes and paupers – she didn’t mean it literally, but it turned out that way.”
What did Prince Andrew say in the BBC Newsnight interview?
In his explosive 50-minute interview, Prince Andrew made a number of outrageous statements to Maitlis. The prince said he doesn’t regret his relationship with Epstein because she made him meet people and have opportunities that were “very helpful.” He defended his decision to stay at the sex offender’s New York home for a few days in 2010, saying it was a “comfortable place to stay”. He also said he had no recollection of meeting Giuffre.
As the interview goes on, Andrew’s answers go from contradictory to completely absurd. He told Maitlis that Giuffre’s account of him “sweating profusely” in a London nightclub was impossible, claiming he had a medical condition that prevented him from sweating. He also disputed that he had sexual contact with Giuffre on March 10, 2001, because he clearly remembered being involved in a British pizza franchise on that date.
The legacy of the BBC Newsnight interview
Just days after the interview aired, when Andrew was met with waves of backlash, he announced his retirement from public life. The broadcast was immediately called a car crash, with critics calling it everything from memorable to tone-deaf. “I don’t think even the most optimistic person in the world could have anticipated the volume of interest,” says McAllister. “I knew what we had. I knew it was huge. I knew it was deep. And I knew it would have a huge effect on him and the people who had made allegations against Jeffrey Epstein.
Both McAllister and Martin say the interview serves as a reminder of the enormous importance of journalism and the many overlooked workers involved in making such a big story. “That’s what journalism does, it holds the powerful and the privileged accountable, and it keeps them in check,” Martin says.
McAllister adds that the film comes at a time when there is a decline in media telling stories like this and investing in the big changes. While the film aired, she has since taken a voluntary buy-out from the BBC and pursued other ventures. Wren now fronts Channel 4 News and Maitlis is the host of the popular podcast The News Agents. but for a moment spoon reunites the three women.
