Michael Sheen says he looked at ‘hot’ throwbacks of Prince Andrew to get into character

Michael Sheen has admitted he looked at “really hot” pictures of Prince Andrew to play the disgraced royal in his new forthcoming Prime Video drama.

Sheen, 55, stars in A Very Royal Scandal, a three-part series about Andrew’s car-crash Newsnight interview with BBC presenter Emily Maitlis, played by Ruth Wilson.

During the now infamous 2019 broadcast, Matilisgrilled the royal on his connection to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his relationship with Virginia Guiffre – one of Epstein’s victims, who accused Andrew of sexually abusing her when she was 17.

The interview received backlash from viewers and days later, it was announced he would be stepping back from royal duties. Andrew vehemently denied the allegations, eventually reaching an out-of-court, multi-million pound settlement with Guiffre.

“Whenever I’ve played a character based on a real life person, first and foremost, I’m looking for where’s the point of connection? What’s the thing that hooks me in?” Sheen told a London screening of the show.

“It was the footage of Andrew, when he came back from the Falklands on the dockside with the rose in his mouth - that’s about as good a moment as you’re ever going to get.”

The Good Omens star explained that the images inspired him to get into character, adding “You’re the brave, conquering, hero returning. You’re really fit! Really hot! And everyone thinks you’re great. And it was sort of downhill from there wasn’t it. That journey was my hook in.”

Earlier this year Keeley Hawes, who plays Andrew’s secretary Amanda Thirsk in rival movie Scoop, said that men like Andrew were once considered “sexy and heroic”.

Discussing how attitudes have changed since the 1980s, she said: “It’s easy to forget – and I was growing up during that period – but we celebrated those men.”

“Bill Wyman and his teenage bride, Randy Andy in his military suit. They were sexy – it sounds disgusting now to say it, but it was heroic.”

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Sheen said he was trying to “bring humanity” to the character.

“Inevitably you bring humanity to a character – that’s certainly what I try to do. I don’t want people to say, ‘It was Sheen who got everybody behind Andrew again.’ But I also don’t want to do a hatchet job.”