Does Ruth Wilson sound like Emily Maitlis in A Very Royal Scandal?

A Very Royal Scandal recreates the infamous 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew when he was faced with allegations of sex trafficking with Jeffrey Epstein.

The series stars Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis and Michael Sheen as the shamed royal, and it depicts how the interview came to take place as well as the moment itself. The accusations and subsequent interview led Prince Andrew to step back from royal duties, and he paid a financial settlement to his alleged victim, Virginia Giuffre, who was 17 at the time of the alleged incident.

Read more: The differences between Prince Andrew dramas Scoop and A Very Royal Scandal

Prime Video’s three-part series is based on Maitlis’ experience of the interview, and so it puts the journalist at the heart of the story. This means Wilson’s performance is the most pivotal part of the piece, which is why her choice of accent might be distracting to some people.

The actor adopts a deep drawl that is markedly different to her own accent, with the choice being described as “bizarre” by one critic in their review of the series.

So the question is does her accent match her real-life counterpart, Maitlis? The answer is, surprisingly, yes and no. Wilson's accent is much deeper than Maitlis' voice so it is distinctly different at times, sometimes distractingly so, but there are moments where the actor does sound like the journalist too.

Wilson spent a lot of time with Maitlis in the lead up to portraying her, telling Variety she even had the chance to ask her some questions of her own.

She told the publication: “I asked her straight-up questions. I went straight in with, do you think he’s guilty? And her answer was, ‘Well, guilty of what, you know?’ So we had big debates. It was brilliant.”

The actor added that Maitlis was keen for the series to show her “chaotic side” in her everyday life, outside of that fateful interview. Wilson said that, even so, she made the interpretation her own: “I push it probably more than she actually is.”

This could perhaps explain why her accent doesn’t quite match her real-life counterpart.

In an interview with People, Wilson explains that Maitlis gave her the jacket she wore in the interview, and Wilson felt she could “smell [Maitlis] on her” when she wore it. The actor even used one of the journalist’s personal handbags for her scenes.

Wilson, for her part, was “quite intimidated” over the idea of Maitlis seeing her performance live, saying: “I was like, ‘Please don’t be around.’ I just thought, ‘I’ll be too self-conscious.’ But we did work a lot together prior to it."

Regardless, Maitlis has said she’s pleased with the portrayal as she told People: “When I was watching stuff back, I didn’t know whether to cringe or cry or shriek with laughter, because she just nailed it.”

A Very Royal Scandal is out now on Prime Video.