Ruth Wilson transformed into Emily Maitlis by wearing her real clothes

As she prepared to play Emily Maitlis for Prime Video’s A very royal scandalRuth Wilson metaphorically stepped into Maitlis’ shoes, but literally stepped into different garments that the veteran journalist actually wore.

Maitlis wore a military jacket for her infamous 2019 BBC broadcast News evening interview with Prince Andrew, the subject of the new three-part series, which opens on September 19. Although Wilson wore a replica coat during filming, Maitlis — who was an executive producer on the show — gave her the actual coat she was wearing that day to help her get into character in advance.

“She gave me her clothes to wear,” Wilson tells PEOPLE. “She gave me the jacket.” She laughs that the gesture of helping Wilson embody her was so intimate that “I could smell her on me.”

The jacket wasn’t the only thing Wilson brought from Maitlis’ wardrobe. The first question Wilson asked Maitlis when she was preparing for the role was, “What’s in your handbag?” — and “the bag I take everywhere is her personal bag,” Wilson says. She adds that the lining of the bag “is just covered in pen ink” and that “it was really revealing because it’s full of headache pills and paracetamol, an eye mask. She’s like, ‘You always have my passports.’ It’s, you know, you always have to be switched on, ready to go.”

Of Wilson’s opening question about what’s in her purse, Maitlis tells PEOPLE, “I thought, ‘Oh my God. Am I going to lie about this and make myself sound really sophisticated and really organized and really cool?’ And I said, ‘You don’t want to see the inside of my purse.’ And she said, ‘I will, because it tells me more about you than anything you can tell me.'”

Of the contents, Maitlis says: “My handbag is the handbag of a woman who is preparing for disaster at every turn. It’s got everything you can imagine in it, including things that shouldn’t be in it because they’re way past their sell-by date. And when Ruth saw what was in it, she thought, ‘I get it. Prepare for things.'” Maitlis adds that after looking at her handbag, Wilson “began to understand my head a little bit — my spirit.”

Maitlis wasn’t on set much because “I was quite intimidated by the idea of ​​her looking at me,” Wilson says. “I thought, ‘Please stay away.’ I just thought, ‘I’m going to be too shy.’ But we did work together a lot before we got into it.”

Wilson went to interview Maitlis in preparation for the role, which she calls “terrifying,” sitting there and interviewing a great interviewer. Wilson also watched Maitlis on the job, “doing her daily routine, so I could observe her in a lot of ways, and there were actually a lot of things I picked up from that,” she says.

Zoom calls followed, and Maitlis “was so generous with her time,” Wilson says. “And honestly, it must be quite scary to allow yourself to be observed in that way. I really have so much admiration and gratitude for her, because it helped to see her in three dimensions. Things like the rollers in her hair — that was entirely my doing, when I went to see her at work and she had rollers in her hair.”

Wilson adds that she learned about “the chaos of journalistic life” from Maitlis, who “was very generous, and we’re still in touch.”

When I saw Wilson play her, Maitlis said, “When I watched the scenes back, I didn’t know whether to shudder, cry or scream with laughter because she just did it brilliantly.”

A very royal scandal follows the lead-up, aftermath and the pivotal interview between Maitlis and Prince Andrew almost five years ago, in which Maitlis asked the Duke of York about the scandalous allegations he faced regarding his involvement with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Guiffre, who accused Andrew of having sex with her when she was 17. Shortly after the News evening interview aired, Prince Andrew announced he was stepping down from public duties, and in January 2022, his mother Queen Elizabeth stripped him of his military titles and patronages amid Guiffre’s now-settled civil sexual abuse lawsuit. Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Although Prince Andrew, played by Michael Sheen, is a central figure in A very royal scandalThe series focuses largely on the women around him. Emily Maitlis, who conducted the infamous interview, features prominently, as do the three women closest to Andrew: his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, and his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, all of whom receive significant screen time. The series also shines a light on the women affected by the alleged actions of both Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

“(Maitlis) had the responsibility of those women on her shoulders, and of everyone watching, to ask the questions and let him tell his story, and she did,” Wilson says. “And I think that’s a very positive affirmation of what very successful, smart, brilliant women can do and hold power to account, and be the voice of women who can’t do that, or people who aren’t in a position to do that. She has the privilege of having that interview, and then the responsibility that comes with that privilege — she’s living up to it.”

But it wasn’t all plain sailing for Maitlis, whose character in A very royal scandal faces backlash after the interview airs. She is considered “too good” at her job and powerful figures (men in particular) refuse to be interviewed by her for fear of being put down, such as Prince Andrew after their conversation on the radio.

“She’s a female journalist in a very male-dominated world who constantly has to prove herself in that world, while men often don’t have to,” Wilson says. “She thinks this interview is going to silence her critics, and because it was so successful and because it was with someone so powerful, people didn’t want to be interviewed by her anymore, and that’s what happened. People didn’t want to show up. She was too threatening.”

Wilson added: “So unfortunately, there’s a negative side to that. What’s great about her, and if you watch that interview a thousand times, you realize that no matter how powerful the person in front of her is — and Prince Andrew is incredibly powerful — she’s going to ask those questions, and she’s going to hold him accountable, and she’s going to hear his story. And she didn’t shy away from asking the tough questions in that scenario.”

After the News evening interview, the longtime journalist went from reporting the story to becoming the story herself, which “wasn’t a comfortable place for her,” Wilson says. “She doesn’t necessarily like being the story. I mean, part of her does, because she’s a performer. So that’s actually a kind of complexity to her, which I really enjoyed. She becomes the new story instead of focusing on the victims. So that’s also what the show is about —[it]questions that.”

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A very royal scandal is not the only dramatization to explore this pivotal moment in television history. Earlier this year, Netflix released Spoona film starring Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew and Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis. However, A very royal scandal benefits uniquely from Maitlis’ role as executive producer, who provides the show with “information from the source,” Wilson said.

“This show takes us behind the scenes,” she adds, “(But) without a criminal case, we have no idea what really happened. It keeps that mystery alive and keeps that central question about power and exploitation and privilege and the responsibility of those in power and holding those in power accountable. So I think the show does all of that very successfully.”