Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew in "Scoop."
He’s a dead-ringer for Prince Andrew in Scoop, but underneath the prosthetic makeup is a very recognizable film and TV star.
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Based on the best-selling book Scoops by Newsnight producer Sam McAlister, Scoop stars Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis, the revered BBC anchor who conducted the widely watched news special. Billie Piper plays McAlister in Scoop, while prolific actor Rufus Sewell plays Prince Andrew. The British royal’s sit-down with Maitlis went so disastrous for the then-59-year-old that one outlet in the British media described it as a “car crash” interview.
To prepare for his role as the disgraced Duke of York, Sewell told Vanity Fair that he watched the Prince Andrew Newsnight interview over and over again to study the duke’s body language and speech patterns down to every beat and pause. In addition, Sewell told the publication, he even watched YouTube videos where FBI and CIA experts broke down the nuances of the interview footage.
“[There are] plainly things that he’s done. He’s afraid of the repercussions of mentioning other names,” Sewell told Vanity Fair. “I think there’s a very strong sense that he doesn’t know how much more [information] is out there or who has the key to it. I think you can tell [in] his extreme hesitancy to make clearer statements about other people … There’s a deep sense of fear in there as well.”
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 27: Rufus Sewell attends the world premiere of "Scoop" at The Curzon Mayfair ... [+]
Sewell’s Recent Series Include A Pair Of Netflix Hits
Born October 29, 1967, in Twickenham, England, Rufus Sewell kicked off his screen career in the 1991 British drama Twenty-One, where he played Bobby, the drug-addicted boyfriend of the lead character Katie (Patsy Kensit). From there, Sewell alternated between a series of film and television roles, which included a turn as Fortinbras in writer-director Kenneth Branagh’s four-hour movie version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1996.
Several notable film roles followed Hamlet for the actor, including the lead turn as John Murdoch opposite Kiefer Sutherland and Jennifer Connelly in the 1998 sci-fi mystery Dark City. In 2001, Sewell played the pivotal role of Count Adhemar opposite Heath Ledger’s William Thatcher in the action-adventure A Knight’s Tale.
Sewell has been working nonstop since his career kicked off in the early 1990s, amassing more than 70 roles in the last 32 years. On the big screen, Sewell also starred in 2005’s The Legend of Zorro, 2006’s The Illusionist, 2010’s The Tourist, 2012’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and 2014’s Hercules.
More recently, Sewell stars as Sid Luft opposite Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland in her Oscar-winning turn in 2019’s Judy. The following year, Sewell starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in his Oscar-winning role in the drama The Father. In 2021, Sewell was part of the ensemble cast of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's suspense mystery Old.
Sewell has appeared in several hit streaming series in recent years, including one of the lead roles in Prime Video’s The Man in the High Castle from 2015 to 2019, and a guest turn in an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2018. In 2023, Sewell starred in the Netflix miniseries Kaleidoscope opposite Giancarlo Esposito and the series The Diplomat opposite Keri Russell.
