Daniel Craig has reflected on his 'incredible' experience with the Queen following the announcement of her death this week.
Tributes for Queen Elizabeth II have flooded in from around the world since the news of her passing was confirmed on Thursday, at the age of 96. With many looking back on their encounters with the longest ever-reigning British monarch, James Bond star Daniel Craig shared his experience with Her Majesty.
A moment remembered by many, the pair had gone viral in 2012 when they created a sketch of James Bond with the Queen for the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. Making a cameo appearance in the sketch, which saw 007 meet with the Queen, the clip then lead onto live footage of a stunt double dressed as the monarch skydiving out of a helicopter.
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Daniel Craig has looked back on filming his 007 comedy sketch with the Queen after she sadly passed away on Thursday. In the film, Daniel, who played British spy 007, stopped by Buckingham Palace to invite the Queen to the event.
The great-grandmother, who was sitting at her writing desk, made him wait before greeting him with, 'good evening, Mr Bond'. The pair then left the room, with the corgis in tow, before getting into a helicopter and flying over London to the Olympic Stadium.
The sketch concluded with a stunt double of the Queen parachuting into the arena before Her Majesty, wearing the same dress as the stunt double, entered the stadium to rapturous applause, reports the Mirror.
Daniel recalled the special occasion at the Toronto International Film Festival.
He told the BBC: “What an incredible thing. We will not see the likes of her ever again.
"To be alive during her reign is something else.”
He added: “(I’m) very saddened, so I suppose good luck to Charles, really.”
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who co-wrote the Queen’s TV appearances with Paddington Bear and Daniel Craig, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday that the Queen had volunteered herself for the Bond scene.
He said: “We went to the Palace asking for permission to represent her and to know what she was wearing on the day, and it was her amazing dresser who said ‘No, no, she wants to be in it.’ She was game and she was up for that.
“In fact on the day when we were filming, she asked Danny Boyle if she could have a line because there wasn’t a line in the script, probably because when I was typing the script I didn’t quite know how you would type the character of the Queen… What would you type?”
Her Majesty also popped up in a video with her grandson Prince Harry, promoting the Invictus Games in 2014. In the hilarious footage, Harry and his grandmother are seen sitting on a sofa in Buckingham Palace, when the prince gets a call from Michelle Obama.
The former First Lady said, 'hey Prince Harry remember when you told us to bring it at the Invictus Games?'. President Obama chips in with, 'careful what you wish for'.
However the camera then cuts back to the Queen, who witheringly and quite brilliantly says, 'oh really, please'.
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