Scoop is a hit with Netflix viewers and the film depicting Prince Andrew’s infamous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis will debut on the streamer on Friday.
Based on the book Scoops, by Sam McAlister, the film captures the tension behind hiring the royals for the interview, as well as the tension between the cast during the interview.
Viewers took to X/Twitter hours after the film appeared on the platform and the majority gave a positive verdict.
Gillian Anderson’s performance as Emily received praise as did Billie Piper, who plays Sam McAllister, the producer who secured the interview with Prince Andrew.
Praising the film, users wrote: “I spent the morning watching Scoop on Netflix, which documents how that notorious interview with Prince Andrew came to fruition – it’s absolutely brilliant and really intriguing.” Highly recommended!’
Scoop is a hit with Netflix viewers with the film featuring Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis debuting on the streamer on Friday (Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis).
The film captures the tension behind hiring the royal for the interview, as well as the tension between the cast during the interview (Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew).
Billie Piper’s performance as television producer Sam McAllister was praised
‘Connor Swindells is breaking new ground! I really enjoyed the movie, Billie Piper was excellent. Actually, the whole performance was great. But what the hell was up with the stuffed animals in Prince Andrew’s bed? Strange.’
‘Here’s to Billie Piper and Gillian Anderson #Scoop’… ‘As much as I love Billi Peiper, when I watch her performance I only see Billie Piper’… ‘I just watched Scoop, it’s magnificent!’
‘Totally amazing, I enjoyed every minute of this #Scoop’… ‘A brilliant piece of television. Well worth your time. Especially when you realize that the interview is another piece of the vast and terrible story that is, and remains, a reality for far too many victims.’
In a slightly less positive review, one user wrote: ‘Just finished watching Scoop on Netflix. It’s worth seeing, but nothing special. Gillian Anderson nails Emily Maitlis. But other than that, very mediocre. 3/5.’
In the infamous interview, Emily spoke out about Virginia Giuffre’s claims that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times when she was 17 under Epstein’s orders.
The prince strongly denied the claims throughout the interview.
The argument, in which Andrew made a series of claims, including insisting that he could not have been with Virginia at the time of the alleged encounter because he was dining at a Pizza Express in Woking and that a medical condition prevented him from sweating. Since then he has gained notoriety and it is widely acknowledged that he has embarrassed the royals.
The interview was described as a “car accident” and on 20 November 2019, a statement from Buckingham Palace said Prince Andrew was suspended from public duties “for the foreseeable future”.
Viewers took to X/Twitter hours after the film appeared on the platform and the majority gave a positive verdict.
In a slightly less positive review, one user wrote: ‘Just finished watching Scoop on Netflix. It’s worth seeing, but nothing special.
In May 2020, it was announced that the prince would permanently leave public duties.
In January 2022, Virginia was given the green light to sue Andrew for unspecified damages in New York civil court.
Despite vowing to fight the accusations and repeatedly protesting his innocence, the prince agreed to pay a huge sum to settle the case before it reached a jury. interview, then the film.
Netflix describes the production as portraying: “The inside track of the women who broke into the Buckingham Palace establishment to secure the scoop of the decade that led to the catastrophic fall from grace of the Queen’s ‘favourite son’.”
“From overcoming Palace vetoes to reaching Prince Andrew’s inner circle, the high-stakes negotiations and the intensity of the rehearsal, to the jaw-dropping interview.”
‘SCOOP is the inside account of the inner workings of the Palace and the BBC, twin bastions of the British establishment, highlighting the journalists whose tenacity and guts penetrated the highest ceilings, and entered the inner sanctum and calculations of a man with everything. lose.’
Rufus Sewell (left) plays the Duke of York
Gillian Anderson (left) plays Emily Maitlis
Billie Piper (left) plays producer Sam McAlister
Keeley Hawes (left) plays Prince Andrew’s former personal secretary Amanda Thirsk.
What the dramatization doesn’t show, however, is the alleged tension between TV star Emily and producer Sam.
Sam was said to earn around a tenth of Emily’s £325,000 annual salary and, while Emily took taxis for work trips, Sam took buses from the BBC’s London headquarters to Buckingham Palace to meet the former private secretary to Prince Andrew.
The disparity is perhaps even more galling for single mum Sam after Emily gave an in-depth interview to Radio Times in 2020 explaining how the story came about, without once mentioning McAlister.
In the article, titled “How we did it, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis and Esme Wren on the Prince Andrew interview that shocked the world”, Wren, now editor of Channel 4 News, said: “We delivered some pretty exceptional journalism.”
A former colleague said: “Although those working behind the scenes don’t always get the credit, for Emily to come out and not mention Sam in such a high-profile interview seems quite unfair and wrong.”
‘Emily had a big salary and then you had Sam working behind the scenes on about £30,000 a year. Without Sam there would have been no interview with Prince Andrew. It’s as simple as that.’
As for how she felt ignored, a source said: ‘Sam tried to laugh it off. It seemed deeply disconcerting that two women didn’t mention another, much younger woman in an interview where they were talking about how the interview came about.’
But Sam’s friends say the omission was a factor in her decision to leave the BBC in 2021 to work freelance and become an advocate for behind-the-scenes production staff.
Emily, 53, has always refused to comment on the breakup.
Based on the book Scoops by Sam McAlister, the film captures the tension behind hiring royals for the interview (left: Rufus and Gillian, right: Emily and Prince Andrew).
Now Emily is making her own show based on the interview, A Very Royal Scandal, currently in production for Netflix rival Amazon Prime.
With no money for any of the streaming giants, they have been fighting for the definitive Hollywood cast for their adaptations.
Scoop boasts an A-list cast (according to friends, McAlister is “over the moon” to have landed The Crown’s Anderson), while A Very Royal Scandal has Hollywood’s Michael Sheen as the Prince.
He recently said that he doesn’t want his performance to be a “hatchet job”: “Inevitably you want to bring humanity to the character.”
Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson will take on the role of Maitlis and The Thick Of It’s Joanna Scanlan will play Thirsk in A Very Royal Scandal.
As for the scripts, Scoop has British playwright and screenwriter Peter Moffat and Philip Martin, who worked on seven episodes of The Crown in 2017, as director.
Emily has arguably improved on her three-part series, hiring Bafta-nominated director Julian Jarrold, who directed The Crown and worked on Sky Atlantic drama This England.
However, he faces a race against time to have his production ready before Netflix’s Scoop, which will premiere on the streaming platform on April 5.