Frank Cottrell Boyce, who co-wrote two of Queen Elizabeth II’s most famous on-screen engravings — at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony with Daniel Craig and charting this year’s Jubilee with Paddington Bear — said the King had “cool” comic timing and could have had represented.
“She’s absolutely radiant in that moment,” he said of her appearance alongside Paddington in the two-minute long sketch, which kicked off her platinum jubilee celebrations in July. “And you have to remember that this real acting is happening there. Paddington isn’t really in the room. She’s acting in an eye-line and with someone pretending to be Paddington. That proper act is going on. But I also think it’s real happiness.”
Cottrell Boyce made the comments during an appearance on the BBC’s Breakfast News on Friday morning, following news of the Queen’s death on Thursday. While praising her acting skills, BBC host Naga Munchetty stated that one of the Queen’s friends, Gyles Brandreth, thought she had always secretly dreamed of being an actress. “I guess it was inside of her, right?” “Oh sure,” said Monchetti, to which Cottrell Boyce replied.
It was also revealed that in the 2012 Olympics sketch, where the Queen appeared to jump out of a helicopter alongside James Bond, she specifically requested a line from director Danny Boyle. “The day we were shooting, she said to Danny Boyle, ‘I think I should have a line.’ So I put that line down, there was no line in the script—it got better,” Cottrell Boyce recalls. In the version that aired, Her Majesty said “Good evening, Mr. Bond” as Craig appeared in her office to escort her to the ceremony.
Cottrell Boyce said that when Mark Tyldesley, production designer for the opening ceremony, originally came up with the idea to have the Queen jump from a helicopter to the Olympic Stadium alongside Craig, no one thought they would “pull it.” But since “no one had a better idea,” opening ceremony producer Tracey Seward said she would go to Buckingham Palace to ask permission to use the Queen’s form and see what she would wear on the day so they could use a double body throughout the whole scene.
“[Tracey] He said, “The meeting would be really boring. Cottrell Boyce laughed.” And the Queen’s wardrobe, this wonderful woman, Angela Kelly, said, ‘Oh, why are you doing all this?’ and [Tracey] He said, “So we can make her look like she’s the queen.” And Angela went, “Oh, the Queen wants to do that.” And Tracy came back and we all went “What?!” So she is for it. It was a game – she wanted to be in that drawing.”
The writer said the Queen had more lines in the Paddington drawing than in the Bond film “in part because it was much cheaper to portray than to portray Paddington,” the writer admitted. “But she had a lot of lines, didn’t she deliver with brilliance and obvious fun? And like I said, that wasn’t an easy task. Paddington isn’t really there. That’s a technically amazing performance, in fact. It’s a brilliantly timed comedy show.”
Cottrell Boyce, who co-wrote the Jubilee Chart with “Paddington 3” writers James Lamont and John Foster, revealed that the idea for the Queen to co-star alongside the cuddly bear in a sketch for the Jubilee Gala also came from Buckingham Palace. “And what a clever idea to do with Paddington, because Paddington embodies many of the values that I have championed. Paddington is about kindness, tolerance, kindness to strangers, politeness, these things about character. These are the values that she has embodied throughout her life and that’s why we feel So sad today. And they aren’t unquestioned values right now. So it wasn’t exactly a nice thing. They were important. That’s why they resonated so much.”
The drawing soon spread around the world and elicited apparent delight from the King’s grandchildren, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, who were among the audience as it was shown on a screen outside the palace just before the jubilee party kicked off.
The final scene of the infographic shows the Real Queen tapping to the beat of the Queen’s song “We Will Rock You” (the band) with a small spoon on a bone china mug before realist rockers, led by Adam Lambert, take the stage. It was a scene that Cottrell Boyce initially worried it wouldn’t work. “I put my hand up and say in those text meetings I was very adamant that we shouldn’t end up clicking her,” he recalls. “I thought it would never work out. To ask too much. […] She pulls it off brilliantly. Amazing.”
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