Hello, my name is Sienna Miller
and I play Sophie Whitehouse.
And I'm Rupert Friend.
I play James Whitehouse in Netflix's Anatomy of a Scandal
based on the book by Sarah Vaughan of the same name.
And we are going to read a passage
that inspired the series.
She walks the few steps from the taxi
to the approach to the Bailey, holding his hand.
Head up, shoulders back, chest out,
eyes fixed on the paparazzi who rush at them
when they see them approaching.
“Sophie, Sophie, this way.”
A middle aged man in a trench coat, scruffy hair,
scruffy suit, a drinker's red face,
invades their space, clutching a notebook.
“Does the PM still have full confidence
in your husband, Sophie?”
His voice is abrasive,
energy and anger packed tight in there.
She shoots him a look that she knows is withering.
She can do withering.
How dare he shout at her
as if she is a dog teased with a stick.
And then John Vestey sweeps them
through a door and they are safe.
James' hand still tight in hers.
High up in the public gallery, she focuses on her husband,
trying to convey the strength of her support for him,
though she knows he will not look up and see her.
He looks authoritative in the witness box.
And for a moment, she hopes the jury
will be fooled into thinking he is just another witness.
One who offers a different version,
an alternative narrative, not the man being tried for rape.
She watches his QC, Angela, and tries to take
some comfort in the breadth of her shoulders,
the expansive way in which she fills her gown.
Ms. Woodcroft is slight in comparison.
She is fussing slightly, this woman,
double checking something in a lever arch file,
the edge of which is thick with colored Post-It notes.
The pages bright with the fluorescent
underlining of certain sentences.
Her left hand scrolls furiously,
a fat fiber tip pressing down.
A hush falls on the court
and then James begins his evidence.
Can you give your full name to the court please?
Yes, my name is James Charles Whitehouse.
He speaks well, his voice low and warm,
with his habitual self-assurance,
but not one hint of arrogance.
This is James at his best.
The approachable politician
setting out his story in his most persuasive way.
She still finds it difficult to hear.
Angela tackles the infidelity head on,
and she listens as her husband explains that his affair
with Olivia wasn't something that he embarked on lightly.
My affair with Ms. Lytton was wrong.
Are you a family man, Mr. Whitehouse?
I am.
“My family, my wife and children, mean everything to me.
It was deeply wrong of me to betray that trust
and to become involved with Ms. Lytton.
It was wrong and weak,
and I feel profoundly guilty for the pain
I have put them through every single day.”
His QC pauses.
“And yet you still put them through that pain.”
I did.
James gives a sigh that seems to
come from the depth of his body,
the sigh of a man tormented by his failings.
“I am not perfect.”
And here, he holds his hands up in supplication.
“As none of us are.
I respected Ms. Lytton as a colleague.
And yes, I admit I was attracted to her as she was to me.
In a moment of weakness, we began an affair.”
Sophie's eyes brim now,
and she watches the prosecuting barrister,
Ms. Woodcroft, rifle through her notes
as Angela leads her husband on.
Occasionally jotting the odd note
in one of her blue legal notepads.
And there is something about the way
in which this woman inclines her head,
and in which she scribbles furiously,
that reminds her of someone else.
The feeling builds through the stuffy next half hour
as James' evidence continues.
Perhaps it is easier to fixate on this woman
than to tune in to her husband's version of events,
which seemed designed to convey that though he was married,
his relationship with Olivia was respectful, consensual.
His parliamentary researcher, someone he cared deeply about.
He sent her flowers, he took her out for dinner,
and in late July, bought her a necklace for her birthday.
What was the gift?
A necklace.
Her heart judders hard at this revelation.
An acute physical pain,
followed by a difficulty in breathing,
as the extent of her husband's deception is laid bare.
His ease at living an entirely unknown life.
“And what was this necklace like?”
Angela's question grabs her attention.
“It was a key,” James explains.
“A play on words.
She was the key to my parliamentary office.
I wanted to show that she was valued,
that she was integral to the success of my job.”
“You didn't think she might see it
as the key to your heart?”
“I suppose that there was the possibility
for that interpretation,” his forehead furrows.
“I don't think I consciously intended her to think that.
Perhaps I was naive, but well, I was a little smitten.”
His words wound her, five blunt words.
Her heart closes over.
She wants to feel nothing, to be entirely numb.
Angela pauses, lets the significance sink in.
“You were a little smitten.”
Her tone is interested, but nonjudgmental.
“Well, more than a little.
She is a very attractive and intelligent young woman.”
“And so you bought her a necklace.
What was it made of?”
“Platinum.”
“So a very generous gift.”
“I suppose so.”
“Far more generous than a usual gift for a colleague.”
“I didn't think of her as merely a colleague by then.”
“You were lovers?”
“Yes, we were.”
Ms. Lytton has told us that she was in love with you.
Was that feeling mutual?
He pauses, and it feels to Sophie
as if every person in the court leans forward
to catch his next words, spoken so softly
and with such apparent sorrow
that he seems to be confessing a secret.
Yes, yes I was.
Thank you.
That's all I have to ask, my Lord.