Sheen used false teeth and wig to transform as Andrew

Actor Michael Sheen has described how he transformed his look for his "intense" portrayal of the Duke of York in the drama A Very Royal Scandal.

The Welsh star used a wig and false teeth for his role as Prince Andrew in the three-part series focusing on the infamous BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, and the days leading up to it.

"It helps with a character if you look very different when you play that character because of the act of taking that stuff off and de-rigging, as we call it," Sheen said.

"I wear a wig and I've got some teeth that I put in, that's it... I try to use what I've got as much as I possibly can."

"But nevertheless, the more different you look, it really does help psychologically."

The 2019 interview, which did great damage to the prince's reputation, saw him talk candidly to Maitlis about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Prince Andrew also used the interview to emphatically deny having sex with then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre.

The prince subsequently paid a financial settlement to Ms Giuffre, formally ending a civil case brought against him in the US.

The out-of-court settlement accepted no liability and the prince has always strongly rejected claims of wrongdoing.

"For me, personally, playing characters that are based on real people are a bit more intense than others and I enjoy that," Sheen said.

"I've tried to stay as true to the version of Prince Andrew that I have been able to research and see.

"Obviously there are huge restrictions on that, because unless you can meet the person and spend time with them and get behind the public profile, it's very hard to know what they're really like and what's really making them tick."

Sheen has previously put his own spin on real-life figures such as David Frost in Frost/Nixon, Chris Tarrant in the ITV drama Quiz, and football manager Brian Clough in The Damned United.

"Ultimately, my performance, in this and in anything that I've done that is a real person, is a mixture of the version of the real person that's out there, that's accessible through research, and then the version of that person, the character, that's in this story and in this script."

Alongside Sheen as Prince Andrew, the series stars Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis, while Maitlis herself was one of the show's executive producers.

"The interview itself was the thing that we were most anticipating," said Sheen.

"I watched that interview in minute detail for months and months many times a day, and it offers up all kinds of things.

"Every time I watch or listen to it, sometimes I watch it, sometimes I just listen to it, and you pick up all kinds of details.

"Having spent so much time focused on that in terms of the research, when you come to actually do it, there's a lot of pressure."

The Amazon Prime series comes months after a rival dramatisation of the 2019 interview, Scoop, was released on Netflix.

A Very Royal Scandal's cast also includes Joanna Scanlan as Amanda Thirsk, Alex Jennings as Sir Edward Young, Éanna Hardwicke as Stewart Maclean and Claire Rushbrook as Sarah Ferguson.

The series debuts on Prime Video on Thursday, 19 September.