Prince Andrew’s ugly history with Jeffrey Epstein will be re-immortalized in a new film about his bombshell BBC interview, according to a new Deadline report. Casting hasn’t yet begun for the movie, called Scoop, but Hugh Grant is apparently on the wishlist to play the notorious Duke of York.
A quick recap: Shortly after Epstein’s death in 2019, Andrew agreed to sit down for an interview, ostensibly to distance himself from the other man’s horrific alleged crimes. The attempt was a complete trainwreck in which he memorably claimed he couldn’t possibly have assaulted a then-17-year-old Virginia Roberts Giuffre because a war injury left him unable to sweat. Subsequently, he was retired from public life as a member of the Royal Family, sued by Giuffre, and eventually stripped of most of his royal titles.
The new film, from a script written by Peter Moffat (Your Honor), is based on the book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews by Sam McAlister, one of the producers of the infamous interview. The story is “about how the BBC’s Newsnight team got the scoop, then the actual filming of it,” Moffat tells Deadline.
“The other thing is, ‘Why did he agree to do it?’ …How was it that he decided it was a good idea to do a great big long interview with Emily Maitlis on the BBC?” Moffat adds.
The screenwriter is focused on how the reporters pulled together the interview under pressure and amidst extreme secrecy, citing the “thrilling drama” of interactions between the BBC team and members of the Duke’s household, his private secretary Amanda Thirskm, and his daughter Princess Beatrice.
Scoop will be produced by The Lighthouse Film & Television, the production company founded by Hilary Salmon, Radford Neville and Nick Betts, along with Voltage TV. We’ll see whether the politically-minded Grant decides to take on the challenge of portraying the disgraced royal.