Emily Maitlis channelled DCI Kate Fleming during her interview with Prince Andrew.
The BBC ‘Newsnight’ broadcaster wanted to use the "forensic" approach favoured by Vicky McClure’s ‘Line of Duty’ character when she grilled the British royal on sex allegations and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaking on Jesse Ware’s ‘Table Manners’ podcast, Emily said: "I was channelling DCI Kate Fleming. There’s something so calmly forensic about the way she does it.
"It’s unemotional, calm, quiet, but you know she’s done her homework. That was what I wanted.
"I’d have shown myself up if I’d got dates wrong, names wrong, said something he’d had to contradict because I’d mixed things up."
The 60-year-old duke has denied all allegations against him.
During the interview, Andrew insisted he could not have been a sweaty man his accuser claimed he was, because he can’t sweat after "an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War, when [he] was shot at".
Emily revealed his comments came after she opened up about her love of feeling a rush.
She explained: "I am quite adrenaline-driven. I am fascinated by adrenaline. Weirdly, that is what I said to him when he said, ‘I must tell you about why I don’t sweat because of the adrenaline’.
"I said, ‘I am fascinated about adrenaline’. Then he told me about the no sweating thing.
"I thought I hated it [adrenaline] and now I have had to recognise it is a part of what I do and what I need. I know I need my highs and know I have to expect my lows.
"So there are crashes but all that is done away from the cameras and away from the interview. I try not to bring that into work."
Emily Maitlis channelled Line of Duty for Prince Andrew interview
