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Gillian Anderson is once again playing a character with British royal family ties in Netflix’s Scoop. (She played Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Crown.) This time, she portrays Emily Maitlis, the journalist who interviewed Prince Andrew in 2019 about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Ahead, why Anderson thought the role “seemed like a really bad idea” and turned it down. Plus, who changed her mind. 

Anderson didn’t want to play Emily Maitlis for 2 reasons: she’s ‘living’ and they call the same neighborhood home

During a Scoop screening and Q&A in New York City, New York, on April 3, 2024, Anderson revealed why she turned down the role of Maitlis. 

“I said no initially,” she said (via People). “It felt [like] Emily Maitlis is known very well in the U.K. She’s been on our screens and in our ears and podcasts for a long time, and she’s kind of known as a superwoman about town.” 

Scoop is based on former Newsnight producer and talent booker Sam McAlister’s book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews. Billie Piper portrays McAlister as she secures the 2019 interview with the Duke of York that resulted in him losing his HRH title and honorary military titles.

“There’s a comment or an off-the-cuff comment in the film about how she swims, and she jogs, and she interviews world leaders and all that,” the actor, 55, continued. “And all of that is very true, and she is quite a formidable presence, and I know lots of people who know her.”

“I played a few people who are no longer living already,” Anderson continued. “And the prospect of not only playing somebody who was living but living in my neighborhood seemed like a really bad idea. So I said, ‘No, thank you.’”

Anderson, of course, ultimately signed on for Scoop, taking on the role of Maitlis despite living in the same area. She stars alongside Piper’s McAlister and Rufus Sewell as Andrew in the film. 

The director and writer of ‘Scoop’ argued Anderson’s connection to Maitlis meant she had to take the role 

Scoop’s writer, Peter Moffat, and director, Philip Martin, eventually got Anderson to sign on for the role of Maitlis during a Zoom meeting. The Sex Education alum recalled how she “explained to them why I wasn’t going to do it.” 

Then Moffat and Martin “both looked at” her “and said, ‘That’s exactly why you have to do it.’” As they made the comment, the same thing went through Anderson’s mind. “Actually, I kind of knew as it was coming out of their mouths,” she recalled. “I kind of thought, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Yeah.’”

Emily Maitlis hasn’t watched ‘Scoop’ yet

Maitlis hasn’t sat down to see herself portrayed by Anderson in Scoop. She told Deadline she hasn’t watched the movie yet, but that she’d “get around to it at some stage.” 

The former Newsnight host also revealed she’s kept her distance from Scoop. “I’ve left them very much to do their own thing because I think the last thing they want is me peeking around the edges offering my [views],” Maitlis said. 

She went on to say she’s “very excited” about Scoop, noting McAlister’s taken the story to “brand new heights.” 

Maitlis, who now hosts The News Agents podcast, is an executive producer on Amazon’s three-part series about Andrew’s Epstein interview told from her own perspective as opposed to McAlister’s in Scoop. 

In A Very Royal Scandal, Maitlis will be played by actor Ruth Wilson and Andrew by Michael Sheen. Despite being based on the same interview, Maitlis shared that the Amazon and Netflix projects are “different.”  

“This will be a very different beast,” she said of the Amazon original series. “I’m sure there’s room for both. It’s unreal that there is all this interest and all this excitement.”

At the time of writing, A Very Royal Scandal doesn’t have an official release date. Scoop is streaming on Netflix. 

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