The Scoop: Hollywood star Gillian Anderson 'scared' to play 'formidable' ex-Sheffield schoolgirl Emily Maitlis

Hollywood star Gillian Anderson says it was scary to play former Sheffield schoolgirl Emily Maitlis on screen, describing her as 'formidable'.

She plays the former King Edward VII School pupil Emily Maitlis in a Netflix drama about her 2019 interview with Prince Andrew, called The Scoop.

The former X-Files actress said she had reservations about taking the part, and initially turned the role down.

She said: "It was just too scary to play Emily Maitlis, because she's still living, because she's so formidable, because people know her so well."

She decided to go ahead anyway, and added: "I thought I probably do have to do it because I'm so scared of it."

A trailer for the film introduces Anderson in the studio alongside two female colleagues and a dog, quipping: "Three women and a whippet? Wouldn't have seen that in a BBC studio when I started."

Maitlis, who announced she was leaving the BBC in 2022 and now hosts The News Agents podcast, has a whippet called Moody and made headlines in 2019 when her dog was pictured sleeping alongside her on a train seat.

The journalist retweeted the trailer on Monday and wrote: "That feeling of being upstaged by your own whippet ... ( again )".

Another drama about the interview, a series called A Very Royal Scandal, starring Michael Sheen as Andrew and Ruth Wilson as Maitlis, is also in the works.

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Scoop will be released on Netflix on April 5.

Former Newsnight host Emily Maitlis was raised in Sheffield after her father became a professor of chemistry at the University of Sheffield.

Asked about her memories of Sheffield, several years ago, Emily said she didn’t realise growing up 'just how exceptional' the city is.