In The Crown, The Queen, A Royal Night Out… when the directors film the character of Queen Elizabeth II, what interests them the most is that behind this sacred function, there is a human being. From this flow two very different treatments of Elizabeth II, both of which seem to aim to desacralize her.
First of all, there are the films which show the person’s intimacy. She is shown in more or less biographical films, such as The Queen, by Stephen Frears (2006), where the queen was played by Helen Mirren. We also remember the role of Claire Foy in The Crownseries broadcast on Netflix, or Sarah Gado in A Royal Night Outby Julian Jarrold (2015).
And then there are the movies that make fun of that person. When Mister Bean meets the Queen in one of his sketches, she receives a headbutt. She fights with a “minion” in the film Minionsby Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda (2015), or finds herself pinned to a table by Leslie Nielsen in Is there a cop to save the queen?, by David Zucker (1988).
Of all these appearances on the screen, the most unexpected was made by Elizabeth II herself in 2012… There she met Daniel Craig, alias “James Bond”, in a film screened during the London Olympics Opening Ceremony.