Getting the Royal TV Treatment

The over-chronicled, all-too-short marriage of the Duke and Duchess of York goes under TV’s microscope this week with NBC’s “Fergie and Andrew: Behind the Palace Doors.”

The result is a film that says Sarah Ferguson was ill-equipped and ill-suited to the cautious, ceremonial royal lifestyle, and Prince Andrew, caught up in his naval career, was insensitive to her distress until too late.

“The villains are the guys who run the Palace and the British media,” says Sam Miller, who plays Andrew. Adds Pippa Hinchley, who dyed her curly brown hair red to play Fergie: “The people who come out badly are ‘The Queen Machine’--the private secretaries, the public relations guys.”

Shot in great secrecy in England during the summer at such locations as Belvoir and Berkeley Castles, “Fergie and Andrew” takes a close look at the celebrated relationship between Queen Elizabeth’s second son and the commoner he chose to be his wife. Currently separated, the couple have two young daughters.

Miller and Hinchley, both rising young stars on British television, are drinking coffee together in a London restaurant and having a giggle over playing one of the world’s most famous royal couples. Although the actors first met when filming started, they have developed an easy camaraderie that the estranged Duke and Duchess would probably envy. Throughout, the two actors egg each other on and cap the other’s remarks. Periodically, they take a break to roll their own cigarettes (‘the royal roll-up,” according to Hinchley).

Miller: “The film establishes us before we meet and then takes us through the whole arc of the relationship.”

Hinchley: “We did a lot of kissing. They were incredibly in love.”

Miller: “It ends wistfully. They still love each other, but the situation makes it impossible for them to carry on.”

Hinchley: “I don’t see how she could return to him if their lifestyle reverted back to the way it was, taking engagements, taking criticism. If he could leave the royal family, and they could live as an ordinary couple ...”

The story is told from the Duchess’ point of view. “From everything I’ve ever heard, Fergie is totally unsnobby and very outgoing, very gregarious,” Hinchley, 25, says. “That’s probably her greatest asset, which became her greatest problem. Coming from the outside is what makes her human and interesting and makes her screw up. It’s what makes you like her if you like her and hate her if you hate her.

“If you’re a movie star or a rock star, you can do whatever you want. You can misbehave in public, and people will love you. I think she chose to marry the man, not the job. That was the sting in the tail. Before she married, she was an incredibly independent, vivacious woman who led a jet-set lifestyle. The press gave her about five minutes’ grace and hasn’t let up for six years. It’s so hurtful.”

Miller, 30, agrees. “The second half of our script shows how their relationship is destroyed by all the attention and pressure that’s put on it. Basically, Andrew is unable to empathize with Sarah’s predicament. Because he’s been born to it and has had his precious upbringing, he doesn’t really see the problem coming. He makes an attempt at the end. When it dawns on him, it’s too late. For him, it’s a coming of age.”

Hinchley interrupts, “They’re a family who generally have never had to do anything they didn’t want to do. The actual idea of his wife leaving him, I’m sure, would never have crossed Andrew’s mind. People say he’s grown up dramatically and realized that your position doesn’t give you a ticket to happiness.”

The royal family has always attracted media attention, but in the last decade the British press has had a feeding frenzy. “When Diana came on the scene, it was the beginning of the end,” Hinchley believes. “The royal family had never had that kind of coverage before on a daily basis. As soon as Diana appeared, it was, ‘Where is she?’ every day of the year.

“When Sarah Ferguson appeared, she was compared. She had the same 500 eagle eyes watching her instead of the two there used to be. That’s a lot to ask somebody to put themselves through.”

“Your life isn’t your own,” Miller agrees. “Wherever you go, there will be photographers and people waiting to talk to you. You have it slightly in the acting profession. I’ll go to a restaurant and someone recognizes me and watches me for two hours. How much did I drink? Who am I with? How late am I out?

“Last night I was at a party, and while I was dancing I was being photographed. If they shoot 20 shots off in a minute, they’ll get three that are bad. They made Fergie look like a complete pigeon. You can destroy someone like that.”

Hinchley says, “Over the years Fergie has been quite a joke figure, and I felt a lot of sympathy for her on that account. If you’re playing a member of the royal family, she’s the one that would cause the most smiles. But she’s a great character to play. She’s being got at, but she’s strong and sensitive, and she’s got a wicked sense of humor.”

Miller found his role challenging in a different way. “Andrew is a less-known royal,” he says. “Although his early life has been well-documented, he hasn’t come to the forefront that much. People aren’t sure how he speaks or what he’d be like in conversation. So for me, that took the pressure off. I wasn’t having to live up to someone like Charles.”

Both performers agreed to star in “Fergie and Andrew” for the same reason: to try to launch a career in America. Hinchley, who has spent the past eight years working in such British films as “The Dressmaker” and “And a Nightingale Sang,” says, “I look and sound completely different every time, so people aren’t aware it’s the same person.”

Miller, who is completing a year’s work on a “Hill Street Blues”-type British series “The Bill,” says, “This job didn’t pay terrifically well, but what was more exciting from my point of view was the chance of being seen in America.”

There are no current plans for “Fergie and Andrew” to be televised in England. “I’d like to think the film puts the record straight,” Miller says. “It has positive things to say. I think British TV secretly would like to show it, but probably it’s too close to them.”

Hinchley insists, “There’s nothing at all sensationalistic, sordid or sleazy. It’s tasteful. The royal family get slated all the time in the press, so this could be a breath of fresh air. I think the royals would love to see it. But it took us 40 years before we did a series about Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson,” referring to the monarch who created a scandal by abdicating the throne to be with the American woman he loved.

“Fergie and Andrew: Behind the Palace Doors” airs Monday at 9 p.m. on NBC.