Her Majesty’s bond with 007 at the 2012 London Olympic Games

As with any large sporting event such as the Commonwealth Games or Olympics Games, members of the royal family are always expected to be in attendance to show their support and the 2012 Summer Olympic Games Opening Ceremony held in London was no exception. As this historic and hugely anticipated event began the year of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, no one, including the Royal Family expected Her Majesty The Queen to be escorted to the ceremony by James Bond 007 himself – Daniel Craig.

The televised event began with Bond arriving at Buckingham Palace in a black cab, jumping out of the parked car, promptly entering the palace, running up the stairs to be met by two of Her Majesty’s beloved corgis at the top, before making his way down the long corridor to The Queen’s drawing room. Bond is shown into the room and introduced to Her Majesty, who is sat at her writing desk, she finishes writing her letter before turning in her seat to acknowledge Bond, greeting him with iconic phrase ”Good evening Mr. Bond”, to which Bond replies ”Good evening Your Majesty”.

The revelation that The Queen was actually in the sketch rather than being played by an actress caused a huge wave of surprise around the world and turned these few minutes of the opening ceremony into some of the most famous in Olympic history.

The Queen and Bond, accompanied by her corgis, made their way out of the palace and head towards a waiting helicopter which then .flew over a crowded Mall full of people waving Union Jack flags. The helicopter continued over London, taking in historic landmarks on the way, including, St. Pauls Cathedral, The Shard, Tower Bridge displaying the Olympic rings, The London Eye and Big Ben, where the statue of Sir Winston Churchill waved to them as they flew past.

However, the biggest surprise was still to come. As the helicopter arrived at Olympic Stadium, it hovered above, before Bond opened the door and Her Majesty seemingly and fearlessly jumped from the helicopter, followed by Bond before their Union Jack Parachutes open and they floated down into the stadium.

The Queens royal dresser claims that when British filmmaker Danny Boyle presented Her Majesty with the idea of performing alongside Bond, she was highly amused and only agreed as long as she could have a speaking role which was ’Good evening Mr. Bond’.

Daniel Craig later praised The Queen for her acting skills, recalling, that she even improvised during their sketch, saying; ”The Olympics thing was one of those things where suddenly Danny Boyle was on set. Barbara (Broccoli) said to me ’Can you come and have a word with Danny? And I sat in the room and he pitched this idea to me and I just went ’You’re out of your mind, what are you talking about?’

“He went ’no, no, no, we’re doing it, we’re doing it, we’re doing it. ”I was right in the middle of a scene and I kind of went ’yeah, ok’ and then sort of walked off. And the next thing you know I’m literally on the way to Buckingham Palace in a tuxedo and we shoot it. And Her Majesty’s there, and Danny’s giving her notes. It’s kind of great – ‘Your Majesty, could you possibly erm…?’ And she’s improvising a bit.

“She literally kind of said ’would you like me to pretend to be writing?’ And he’s like ’Yes, that’s great, that’s great’. “So she sort of acted a bit. That was all her own stuff. It was amazing”. ” She was great – calmer than me. My heart was going ’dum, dum, dum, keep it together, keep it together”.

The moment became instantly iconic.