A photographer who shot the infamous Prince Andrew interview in 2019 says the Duke of York thought it went ‘really well’ but the crew feared it may never happened as they suspected the royal would ‘walk out’.
Mark Harrison said he got a call from BBC Newsnight in November 2019 after his friend was unable to do the job.
The photographer, who has taken images of Margret Thatcher before, said he almost turned down the gig as he was waiting for a dishwasher delivery.
Little did he know that the job was for one of the most disastrous interviews in royal history, which is being recreated for Netflix drama Scoop, airing tomorrow.
Emily Maitlis spoke to the Duke of York about his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations made by Virginia Giuffre.
In scenes that humiliated Andrew and his family, he claimed he was at Pizza Express in Woking on the night Virginia Giuffre claimed he had sex with her in London when she was 17.
Photographer Mark Harrison went on This Morning today and spoke about the interview experience
One of the shots that Mark got of Prince Andrew and Emily Maitlis in the corridor
He also tried to dispel her claims he ‘sweats profusely’ by claiming that being shot at during the Falklands War left him with a condition that means he is unable to perspire.
Andrew then went on to suggest the photo of them together at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London mews house was faked.
Despite all of this, Mark claims Andrew thought the interview went ‘really well’ at the time.
The photographer got a call at 6.30pm the night before the interview was due to take place and told This Morning: ‘The phone goes and they say “are you free tomorrow?” in a slightly panicked voice.
‘I said it depends what it is because I have a dishwasher delivery coming. They said they couldn’t tell me and that I had one minute to decide if I want to do it.’
Mark said he was intrigued by the call and decided to accept the job. He was then told to go to Buckingham Palace the following day in a sharp suit and polished shoes.
‘I’m waiting and I felt a bit like a spy, which sounds ridiculous but I don’t know what I’m going to do or why I am there,’ he said.
Mark then explained that he heard a tannoy announcing that the Queen’s laundry had arrived at the Palace.
‘So I stand up and have a look. It was in a large van that turned up, I probably shouldn’t say any more than that,’ he said.
He then made his way up into the main room when an intern for Palace told him he was there for a job with the Duke of York.
‘[The crew] said don’t stop the filming whatever you do, there’s a chance that Prince Andrew might walk, we don’t know what’s going to happen, whatever you do, get it,’ he said.
Prince Andrew appeared in good spirits as he was snapped driving near Windsor Castle on Thursday
The Duke of York, 64, donned a navy jumper, as he got behind the wheel with a royal aide, a day before release of Netflix film Scoop about the Duke’s Newsnight interview
The drama – starring Gillian Anderson , Billie Piper and Rufus Sewell (pictured) – delve into the royal’s car-crash Newsnight interview regarding his relationship to paedophile Jeffery Epstein
Mr Sewell as the Duke of York and Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis in Scoop, left, which retells the story of his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview – widely considered the most disastrous in royal history
Mark said he had to delay the start of the interview as there was a ‘messy breakfast’ in the back of the shot and he asked for it to be removed.
He said: ‘I didn’t shoot during the interview. I shot beforehand with Andrew smiling and Emily looking quite serious.’
The photographer said that corridor shots were actually done right at the end of the interview but they showed them at the start.
‘[Andrew and Emily] marched up to the end of the room and I asked them to go really slowly and not talk and they’re moving quite fast and [talked].
‘We get to the end and [they say] it’s a wrap and that’s when Prince Andrew said “Well I think that went really well”.’
Mark added that he was ‘blown away’ by the whole experience and the interview came as a ‘bit of a shock’ to both him and the public.
Netflix has announced that a new movie based on the interview, which stars Rufus Sewell as the Duke of York and Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis, is being released tomorrow after its premiere in Mayfair last week.