Olivia Colman has admitted she didn’t exactly put her best foot forward when she met the Queen for the first time.
The British star – who won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix drama The Crown – has revealed she met the royal for the first time while attending a film event at Windsor Castle.
However, she said she wasn’t aware that she’d actually be in the presence of the Queen until she and other guests found themselves being rounding up into a queue formation.
Speaking to Variety, Olivia said: “I didn’t think she’d be there and suddenly we all ended up in a big queue.”
She continued: “I thought somebody was using the rooms for the bash and then suddenly we looked down the corridor and went, ‘Oh fuck’.
“This man in epaulets was telling us what to do, ‘Just a little bow, don’t overdo it,’ and sort of scuffled us forward.
“So you might just meet your royal highness and just keep moving, keep moving because she had hundreds of people to get through. And that was it.”
Still, although it was a little chaotic, it sounds like Olivia’s meeting with the Queen went more smoothly than the time she bumped into Prince William.
Speaking to Graham Norton shortly before making her debut in The Crown last year, she recalled: “I met Prince William at a dinner and he asked me what I was doing at the moment, before he quickly added, ‘actually, I know what you’re doing’.
“I was so excited and asked, “Have you watched it?” His answer was a firm, ‘No’.”
Olivia is set to return as Queen Elizabeth II in the forthcoming fourth series of The Crown, which will begin streaming on Netflix later this year.