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Queen came up with gags for London Olympics James Bond sketch herself, reveals Daniel Craig

Queen and James Bond - AFP
Queen and James Bond - AFP

The Queen came up with ideas for the London 2012 Olympics James Bond skit herself, Daniel Craig has revealed.

Her Majesty’s big reveal during the opening ceremony video, is which she appears sitting at a bureau scribbling notes, was the Queen’s inspiration.

As she took direction from Danny Boyle, the monarch fired back, suggesting tweaks to the sketch.

Craig, 53, told BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball Breakfast Show: “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, dum, keep it together, keep it together’.

“Literally there’s corgis tripping you up. There’s like, five corgis.”

Speaking on Friday, he added: “If you put it in The Crown they’d think it was rubbish. They would be like, ‘no, it’s not real’.

“I was rolling around with the corgis on the floor at one point in Buckingham Palace.”

The skit saw Bond escorting the Queen from Buckingham Palace before appearing to parachute into the Olympic Stadium alongside her. While the Queen herself acted out shots at the palace, the second part of her cameo, where she floated down to the stadium, was played by a stuntman in a wig.

Craig’s latest 007 outing as Bond, in No Time To Die, directed by Cary Fukunaga, is released on Thursday.