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The Queen ‘demanded speaking part’ in Olympic opening ceremony film

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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According to her royal dresser, the Queen offered to appear in a 2012 London Olympics James Bond skit with Daniel Craig if she had a speaking role.

In her new biography, The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser, and the Wardrobe, Angela Kelly (the queen’s personal assistant and senior dresser) recently opened out about the memorable occasion.

In a video that appeared at the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics in London, the Queen teamed up with Daniel Craig (as James Bond!) and director Danny Boyle for a cameo in a mini-movie parodying the famed British espionage films. Stunt actors portraying Craig’s character and the Queen were helicoptered across London and parachuted into the Olympic stadium after Craig’s character picked up the Queen from Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth made her dramatic arrival on the steps of the VIP seats to applause.

Boyle first pitched the proposed sketch to Kelly and the Queen’s private secretary Edward Young, according her book. Kelly hurried to ask the Queen whether she approved of the plan.

Kelly says in the book, which has been excerpted in Hello! Magazine, “I asked him and Edward to give me five minutes so that I could ask the Queen. I remember the look of shock on Danny’s face that I would be asking Her Majesty straight away, but there’s no point in waiting around with these things: if she said no, that would be the end of it.

“I asked whether she would like to say: ‘Good evening, James,’ or: ‘Good evening, Mr Bond,’ and she chose the latter, knowing the Bond films. Within minutes, I was back in Edward’s office delivering the good news to Danny — I think he almost fell off his chair when I said that the Queen’s only stipulation was that she could deliver that iconic line.”

The five-minute clip took four months to make, and the parachute leap required stunt doubles. It was skillfully brought to a conclusion in real time on the night of July 27, 2012; the film’s premiere was scheduled to coincide with the Queen’s visit at the Olympic Park, who entered the Royal Box wearing the same clothes she had reportedly worn when she did her parachute leap.

Kelly designed both the Queen’s and stuntman Gary Connery’s peach crystal and lace dresses for the cameo, one for the pre-recorded segment and the other for stuntman Gary Connery, who stunned spectators across the world by stepping out of the chopper and into the arena as Her Majesty.

She disclosed insights about the Queen’s attire and her relationships with famous public individuals
throughout Kelly’s 25 years working for the royal household.

Kelly detailed the extent to which employees went to keep the monarch’s look a surprise in her earlier book, Dressing The Queen: The Jubilee Wardrobe.

“The Buckingham Palace dressmakers worked quietly for months, never having both dresses out of storage at the same time,” she said. “Even they didn’t know why two dresses were required for the same event.”