Prince Andrew actor opens up on 'mental challenges' he faced playing disgraced Duke of York

Sheen highlighted the unique challenge of portraying the Duke of York, given the nature of the controversy surrounding him.

The actor recently appeared on Maitlis' News Agents podcast to discuss his approach to the role.

Sheen described the challenge of playing Prince Andrew, stating: "Once I start the process of playing the character, I have to put all my personal opinions aside, and my job is to try and make that character as real as possible."

He explained: "When I come to play a character, I usually know the most important things about that character.

"The central, most important thing about this character, I didn't know."

To navigate this Sheen employed a nuanced approach. He said: "When we did certain key scenes, I said, 'Right, I'm going to give you a take now which is leaning this way a bit,' and, 'I'm going to give you a take, which is leaning this way a bit now.'"

This method allowed Sheen to explore different perspectives on the prince's situation.

Sheen added that his approach to portraying Prince Andrew involved using mental acrobatics.

The actor explained: "I still knew I had to sort of change little things in my head, do a bit of mental acrobatics in my head, so I wasn't changing what I thought, but essentially what was going on for him."

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This technique allowed Sheen to explore various aspects of the prince's character without altering his own personal views on the situation.

A Very Royal Scandal is set to be released on Prime Video in three parts on September 19.

It follows Netflix's Scoop, released in April, in dramatising Prince Andrew's Newsnight interview.