When Queen Elizabeth Pulled Out an Action-Packed Entry to The Olympics With James Bond

Late Queen Elizabeth II was a part of the London Olympics 2012 in a rather extraordinary manner. In a resurfaced video that shows the Queen accompanying Daniel Craig for the grand opening ceremony in London, she appears to perform a stunt that left everyone in awe. In the promotional video of the Olympics, Her Majesty walks through Buckingham Palace for a thrilling chopper ride with the James Bond actor as onlookers wave at her. 

Moments later a body double of the Queen jumps off the helicopter in a parachute to land directly in the stadium of the ceremony while the audience cheered for her as reported by BBC. Right after the adrenaline rush inducing jump, the real Queen appeared in the stadium as she greeted the guests of the event. The skit that reprises a James Bond like essence to the Queen's demeanor is amongst the most enthralling pop culture moments in the history of the Royal family and the Olympics. According to Metro Craig revealed that the Queen had kept the cameo a secret from her family for the grand surprise during the Games. 

The production stage manager Sam Hunter had shared how the Queen gave a nod for it as she took out few hours to shoot with Craig. "The Queen never told her family she was doing it. That was one of the stipulations when she agreed to be part of it but she didn’t want them to know. So if you actually see when she comes and she takes her seat, you can see her family go, 'Ah, nice one.'" Not many know that the Queen literally "ran down the corridor" from her room to the stadium to watch the stunt live. 

However, the real reason behind keeping it a secret was revealed when Olympics opening ceremony executive producer Stephen Daldry. "What was hard was that you didn’t really want to say much to the cabinet because you didn’t know how secure they were." He further added, that he, "Wasn’t sure that they [the cabinet] would keep their mouth shut. I think the Queen was amused at the idea, we were quite surprised that she agreed to do the jump. But I think they have a tradition of practical jokes and I think for her it was a really good practical joke about the grandchildren not knowing that she was going to do it, and she thought it was going to be very funny for them." 

During an appearance in The Late Show earlier this year, the actor spoke about a witty joke the Queen was eager to crack on him, saying, "[She is] very funny, wants to crack a joke, and crack a joke about me. We were having our photograph taken, and she just went, 'Oh no, he’s the one that doesn’t smile.'" Nevertheless, who could have thought that the Queen would try her hands in a James Bond cameo?