When the Summer Olympics descended on London in 2012, it was a thrilling time not only for sports fans, but for royal watchers, too. Queen Elizabeth and her family made numerous appearances over the 16-day event—and royal equestrian Zara Tindall even won a medal—but the moment that probably sticks in your brain was a cameo that was never actually meant to happen. The late Queen famously participated in a James Bond sketch that played during the opening ceremony, and its Oscar-winning director, Danny Boyle, thought someone was playing a trick on him when he found out the monarch actually wanted to take part.
Originally, Boyle—who has worked on the likes of Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later—thought he'd get an actress to play the part of The Queen, but needed Buckingham Palace's sign-off. "We wrote up this idea, the James Bond idea and we sent it into them," Boyle told the Jonathan Ross Show in 2013. "We were asking really for permission."
