ZAMM.COM

With Britain’s Royal Family in the headlines daily thanks to former Prince Andrew’s ties to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — and Andrew’s arrest today (2/19) — it’s good timing to take another look at THE QUEEN.

THE QUEEN, which won BAFTA’s best film Feb. 11, 2007, was written by Peter Morgan (FROST/NIXON). He went on to create THE CROWN, which began streaming on Netflix in 2016 and was wildly controversial for how it dramatized the royals’ lives.

No royal feathers were ruffled with THE QUEEN, which Stephen Frears (DANGEROUS LIAISONS) directed and Miramax released domestically. In fact, the late Queen Elizabeth II was sufficiently pleased with her portrayal by Helen Mirren to invite her to dinner at Buckingham Palace. Mirren, unfortunately, had to decline due to other filming commitments.

Mirren transformed herself into the Queen by using the right eyeglasses and wig and by adopting a facial expression with a slightly down-turned mouth that both women apparently shared. Mirren, whose performance brought her the lead actress Oscar & BAFTA in 2007, studied news footage of the Queen and kept photos on hand to refer to while shooting.

In writing his bio-drama about events following Princess Diana’s untimely death in 1997, Morgan conducted extensive interviews, including with anonymous sources who knew the royals and Prime Minister Tony Blair — played by Michael Sheen, a BAFTA supporting actor nominee. By corroborating accounts from his A-List sources, Morgan created the behind-the-scenes scenes he needed.

His principal characters did things in the movie that matched their real-life behavior. Blair’s wife Cherie (Helen McCrory), for instance, is a staunch anti-monarchist in the film, just as she was well known to be. Her refusal to curtsy to the Queen, both on screen and off, reportedly amused the real Queen. Morgan had the late Prince Phillip using the affectionate nickname “cabbage” for the Queen in private, which also is well known to be what he did call her when they were alone.

Frears was discrete in how he showed the Queen in a scene where she’s crying quietly to herself as events unfold following Diana’s death. Rather than film this straight on into the camera, Frears shot from behind the Queen to avoid showing her in that vulnerable moment. But he then let moviegoers see her drying her eyes with one of her signature Hermès scarves.

While THE QUEEN gets high marks for authenticity, it may have strayed a bit in one scene where a Blair political aide suddenly comes up with the phrase “The People’s Princess.” It’s claimed, however, that that spot-on reference to Diana was first used in passing on live TV by a BBC correspondent the morning after her death. It wasn’t until several hours later that Blair famously referred to Diana that way.