To play Prince Andrew, Michael Sheen said he spent hundreds of hours just on the bombshell interview of the disgraced royal in 2019.
In a chat with Variety, the Twilight star, who has starred in Amazon Prime Video’s A Very Royal Scandal, said the impact of the Newsnight interview was so profound, prompting him to study the 64-year-old at a great length.
The Good Omens star said he watched the original interview “hundreds upon hundreds of times,” adding. “The first thing I did when I woke up was listen to the audio of it.”
In his thoughts on the interview, Michael said, “It’s so rare that someone in a position of power and privilege would allow themselves to be put in that position.”
“Usually what all too often happens is, if there is a controversial — possibly illegal — situation someone throws money at it and it goes away.”
Continuing his reply, the 55-year-old said he marvelled at the thought of Andrew finding himself in a spot where he was held accountable, which went against what he thought he would achieve from the interview.
“But for a person to voluntarily put themselves in a position where they are being made accountable when that person is never having to be accountable, has never been made to be accountable,” he continued. “And it says so much that that person doesn’t even expect to be made accountable.”
“You know, [he] goes into that situation and allows it to happen because he thinks he’s going to be in control of it,” Michael concluded.