Queen, 96, refused to quit filming iconic Paddington sketch for Platinum Jubilee despite failing health, reveals writer
A WEARY Queen Elizabeth II refused to give up when filming her Platinum Jubilee Paddington sketch — ploughing on until she nailed her lines.
The late Queen was 96 and battling mobility problems when she filmed the award-winning sketch a few months before her death.
By the end, she was tired and struggling with her punchline where she pulls a marmalade sarnie from her handbag and tells Paddington: “I keep mine in here.”
But she kept going, finally nailing the line when the director told her to deliver it as if she was speaking to her grandchildren.
Her determination impressed actor and writer Simon Farnaby, who played the royal footman in the clip.
He lifted the lid on the day, telling Richard Herring’s podcast: “The director would come in and say, ‘Ma’am, could you just be a bit gentler’. And she’d be so sweet and go, ‘I’m so sorry. Yes, of course’.
“He’d go, ‘Like you’re talking to your grandchildren’. She’d say, ‘Oh, of course. I’m so sorry’. I was saying to him, ‘Give up, just stop, we’re not going to get it’. And he said, ‘No, I think just a couple more’.”
Simon, who co-wrote the Paddington 2 movie, said that when the Queen got the line right, “it was really sweet and really lovely”.
But when he later complimented the Queen on being a great actress, she quipped: “Well, I do it all the time.”
