♪♪ ♪♪ [ Suspenseful music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I was in New Mexico, shooting a Western, and we went out to supper and one of my sons didn't go out to supper and, when we came back, he was standing at the door, saying, "Lady Di is dead."

I wasn't in the country, either, so, I was watching it all from afar.

It was a very, very shocking piece of news.

She had been so much in our lives for the past ten years.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Knock at door ] Yes.

[ Door opens, footsteps ] I've just spoken to our ambassador in Paris, ma'am.

I'm afraid it's not good news.

Narrator: "The Queen," the film directed in 2006 by Stephen Frears, retraces the story of the crisis that threatened the existence of the British monarchy in 1997, nine years earlier.

This political drama unfolds over one week between the death of Princess Diana on Sunday, August 31st, until her funeral on Saturday, September 6th.

Tradition held that, after Diana was divorced from Prince Charles, she was no longer considered a member of the royal family.

Queen Elizabeth, therefore, refused to grant her a state funeral or make any public statement about her.

But the British public were extremely fond of Diana.

They were upset by her tragic death and could not understand the queen's attitude.

The death of the British monarchy came closer in that week than at any time in modern history and, certainly, closer than any time in the reign of Elizabeth II.

Narrator: The young Labor Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who was elected four months earlier, feared the consequences of a conflict between the queen and her people.

He and his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, went to work to defuse the crisis.

[ Voice on TV ] This is going to be massive.

[ Sighs ] Her death was confirmed by the French interior minister.

I'd better make a statement in the morning.

Well, you'll be pleased to know I've already started coming up with ideas.

God, she's only been dead an hour.

Would you prefer I didn't do my job?

The first phone call I had with Tony Blair in the middle of the night, when we knew that she was dead, and Tony said -- And the great thing about keeping a diary is that I wouldn't have remembered this.

I don't remember that conversation, but I've recorded him saying, "This is going to produce an outpouring of grief, the likes of which we've never seen before."

And it did.

♪♪ ♪♪ She's done so much great things for people.

You know, she's just one of us.

She was a great lady.

The world will never be the same without her again.

It's just heartbreaking, how her kids must be feeling right now.

Narrator: The morning after Diana's death, thousands of grieving Londoners gathered in front of the royal palaces.

In their eyes, Diana embodied a more compassionate monarchy.

She was a sort of NGO princess, committed to causes like eliminating antipersonnel mines and the fight against AIDS.

Her kindness had won the hearts of the British people.

Mirren: I thought there was a sort of hysteria about it.

It seemed to be more about people displaying their grief for themselves than it was truly about a thoughtful and feelingful reaction to this undoubtedly tragic situation.

I think it was sunny and warm and I think, if it had been rainy, [ Laughs ] it wouldn't have been the same.

Obviously, there would've been, you know, some reaction.

But I think everyone was in a sort of state of shock about it.

The roots of the film, I think, lie in that week because both Peter Morgan and I were in London that week and I think we both felt very similarly -- how extraordinary it was.

For both Peter and I, the death of Diana and that week had a huge and lasting impact and I think we both knew, somehow or other, we wanted to do something about it.

Although it was shocking to hear what had happened, it didn't feel to me unreasonable or illogical.

It was quite clear that, you know, it was just an accident of alcohol and irresponsibility.

And so, it, actually, then became interesting to look at the days after her death.

[ Melancholy tune plays ] ♪♪ Peter looked into the events of Diana's death and Peter said, "This is not very interesting.

The only interesting character is the queen.

And then you have to have Blair."

And then there was antagonism, there was drama.

His notion was, if you were going to do the queen, then in the end, it's her relationship with Tony Blair in that week that, actually, fundamentally, is what was really interesting.

And Peter found a structure in the week, which is, you know, again, it's the natural drama of the week, was all there to be sort of unearthed.

Blair: Good morning, Your Majesty.

Prime Minister.

May I say right away how very sorry I am and that the thoughts and prayers of my family are with you at this terrible time and with the princess, in particular?

Thank you.

I didn't want to be a part of another satirical look at the monarchy or the queen.

I really, really didn't want to be a part of that, so, I said, "You know, let me look at the script, obviously, before I make any commitment."

And it was kind of magical.

It was very powerful and it was it was very, you know, quite true, but funny, but very serious as well.

There was a read-through and then she went into a room with the costume people.

And when she came out, she was the queen.

It was as simple as.

And those classy actresses... ...they transform themselves just like that.

They don't sort of -- you know, they don't -- [ Laughs ] It's as though they don't think about it.

Frears: [Indistinct] Yes.

[Indistinct] [Indistinct] What fun.

[ Poignant music plays ] ♪♪ I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

♪♪ Narrator: In 1953, Princess Elizabeth was crowned queen.

The ceremony was broadcast on European television, then in its infancy.

The princess was only 26.

♪♪ Her reign has been the longest in the history of the British monarchy.

I watched film, a lot of film.

Thank God for YouTube.

And -- But I honed down on any film that was about her before, from like 24 and younger.

In other words, any film before she became the queen because I thought that was the only way I had any chance of really seeing who this real person was, this real, the real character, the personality.

And then I got down to one little piece of film, in particular, that I just watched over and over and over again.

It's a tiny little piece of film and I think she's probably about 12 or 13 and she's getting out of a big black car.

And there are these big men and there's this little figure.

She walks up to them and she puts her hand out to shake hands.

And she does it with such composure, such a sense of duty, such a sense of, "I've got to do this right."

Such a seriousness, such a sweetness.

You are dealing with a story, whether they're princes and princesses or not, and whether you agree with that whole fairy-tale thing, they're people, they're a family.

I think both Helen and I became protective of our royals that we were playing.

In playing the role, I never thought of her as the queen.

I always thought of her as Elizabeth Windsor, as a human being in this situation, with this kind of character and this kind of personality and these kind of traits, trying to deal with this.

No member of the royal family will speak publicly about this.

This is a private matter.

We would all appreciate it if it could be respected as such.

I see.

I don't suppose anyone's had time to think about the funeral yet.

Well, we've spoken with the Spencer family and it is their wish -- it is their express wish -- that this should be a private funeral with a memorial service to follow in a month or so.

Right.

Given that Diana was no longer a member of the royal family, we have no other choice but to respect their wishes.

I see.

A big part of what the film is about is an old order dying and a new order being born and that, actually, it had already happened, that Britain had changed, we just hadn't become aware of it.

There needed to be an event, almost like a flash of lightning, that suddenly illuminated something that had happened already, that we hadn't noticed.

And I think Diana's death made it very clear that Britain was a different country.

[ Suspenseful music plays ] Narrator: A few hours after Diana died, Tony Blair was the first to deliver a public tribute to her.

His speech, written with the help of Alastair Campbell, made Diana into a national heroine.

♪♪ With Blair, I remember watching the speech that he did about the People's Princess outside the church that Sunday, watching that a lot.

That became a kind of totemic thing.

The people everywhere -- not just here in Britain, everywhere -- they kept faith with Princess Diana.

They liked her.

They loved her.

They regarded her as one of the people.

She was the People's Princess.

The only line in my diary about People's Princess is, "We agreed it was okay to call her the People's Princess."

I don't have any memory of it, none at all.

Tony and I probably spoke for several hours on the phone.

What I imagine happened from that "We agreed it was okay," I think that suggests to me that he said, "Do you think -- What do you think about People's Princess?"

or whatever, and I probably said, "Yeah, that sounds fine," and that probably was the sum total of it.

It was clearly prepared.

and the People's Princess, as a phrase, was very, very, you know, worked out.

So, there was an interesting combination of elements there and about needing to get that right.

Him needing to get that right.

There was a lot of pressure on him, I think, to take that moment.

And also, I think, as a performer, he was aware that, if he got that right, there were great rewards to be had.

And so it brought a lot of elements of his character together there.

The people everywhere -- not just here in Britain, everywhere -- they kept faith with Princess Diana.

They liked her.

They loved her.

They regarded her as one of the people.

She was the People's Princess.

Well, he came out of the week a sort of world statesman.

I mean, he grew during that week.

And he, I mean, he clearly handled it extremely well and grew in stature.

Right at the beginning, he set a particular tone and you could say, of course, he set in chain an emotional channel, which became a torrent, which then became his problem and the queen's problem to control.

♪♪ ♪♪ Narrator: Tony Blair's passionate tribute contrasted with the queen's silence, which the people perceived as insensitive.

Yet behind the scenes, the queen began to give in.

There is now general agreement, ma'am, that a public funeral would be more appropriate.

I see.

♪♪ Pressured by her advisors and Tony Blair, the queen finally consented to giving Diana an official funeral.

On the weekend of Diana's fatal accident, the queen was on holiday in Scotland, at Balmoral Castle.

Despite the intense emotions felt in London, she decided to stay where she was, with Diana's sons and the royal family.

Basically, it's her home.

It's where her mother came from.

It's where Prince Philip gets out the barbecue and the royal family can take on some sort of facsimile of ordinary people's lives.

There's the queen, with her knowledge and her sense of decorum and self-control and discipline.

And then, of course, there's the other queen, which is the countrywoman, the muddy dogs, the marching in Wellington boots, not caring whether your hair's all out of place.

The fact that this tragedy happened when she was there, both found her on home ground, which was quite stabilizing, but was too stabilizing.

Balmoral was just cut off from the world, and that was the whole point of it.

My excitement at the idea increased when I heard that the queen had instructed there to be no media -- no newspapers, no television, no radio -- to protect the boys, but, of course, that just made it even more a perfect metaphor, you know, for how cut off they are and how much their heads are in the sand.

And the -- the flowers.

What flowers?

The -- The flowers outside Buckingham Palace.

At the moment, they're blocking the path through the main gate and will make things difficult for the Changing of the Guard.

Oh, well, fine.

then just move them away.

Sprinkling of actors of stage and screen -- It was Stephen's decision to film -- [ Laughs ] to film all the regal scenes, if you like, all the scenes with the queen were shot on 35 mil and all the Tony Blair scenes were shot on Super 16.

Partly, of course, he will argue -- and I think it was an interesting point -- that he wanted a little bit more of a news feel to Tony Blair.

He wanted a sense that it was a little, you know, the contrast between the sumptuousness, if you like, of palace life and the royal family's trappings against someone like Tony Blair, who sort of represented the middle England kind of guy, a guy who lived in a fairly normal sort of terraced house in North London.

He had a wife and kids.

That was really just a sort of joke about the mystery of monarchy and that the monarchy should be treated in a -- You know, they rule by divine right, so they're gods, so, of course you should photograph them properly, not some scruffy little 16-millimeter camera.

I never heard any member of the audience say, "Oh, it was so satisfying."

[ Laughs ] But it was quite entertaining.

There was an intentional use of different textures to represent the different worlds, which then got enhanced when we brought in also the archive.

In the archive, we discovered that we could have Diana as a character, which was not quite what was in the script.

So, Diana becomes an element of the film.

[ Camera shutters clicking continuously ] I always thought, "Urr, I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to write Diana.

I'm not sure there's anyone out there who can play Diana," and so I think, you know, we all agreed on that quite quickly and, you know, that would've involved flashbacks, anyway, and that's a hideous device.

So, I think it's good.

It also [ Camera shutter clicks ] made it more ghost-like.

♪♪ ♪♪ Narrator: By now, the emotion had spread all over the world.

London was crowded with visitors from all over the country.

The public wished the queen would join them in mourning.

Her absence was provoking anger.

I think, more than a statement, our queen should be here in London with her people.

This is her nation.

[ Crying ] And they should know how all her people feel about Diana.

♪♪ Since Diana's death, no one had ordered that a flag be flown at half mast on the roof of Buckingham Palace.

The lack of response was all the more critical, considering flags were flying at half mast on all the other government buildings in Britain.

Okay, the queen's not in residence today, but where the hell is the flag, eh?

You see what I'm saying about the establishment?

Don't tell me there isn't a flag flying at half mast over Buckingham Palace.

She was their king and queen.

Dodi and them two were together.

-God!

-It was a fairy tale come true.

Will someone please save these people from themselves?

I remember looking up at the palace and, even though I know the technicalities of where the royal standard should be or shouldn't be, it did look so bizarre and bare, the flagpole, and you could see why it became such a sense of grievance.

You're the sovereign, the head of state.

You don't get dictated to.

You've conceded the idea of a public funeral.

You've opened up the parks.

That's enough.

Shh!

The boys.

You wait.

In 48 hours, this will all have calmed down.

[ Barking ] Well, I always hoped that it was critical of the institution, but sympathetic to the woman herself.

So, if it hit that line, then I'm -- It's okay with me.

That's right.

I can see that making a film called "The Queen" was subversive, but I never thought there was anything in it.

It was all quite straightforward.

Very dignified.

I'm sure we could've made a much more scurrilous film.

[ Melancholy tune plays ] ♪♪ I never imagined I'd be a film director.

It's all come as a big surprise.

I wanted to work in the theater and then I met a film director.

I was working at the Royal Court and then Karel Reisz came to do a play, which collapsed.

He said, "Come and work on my film."

So, I stumbled into it.

I was absolutely a child of that sort of postwar change, which led to films being made, films and plays and novels being written about contemporary Britain, and I thought that was incredibly interesting.

Narrator: Born in 1941, Stephen Frears made his debut as a cinema director when he was 30, with "Gumshoe."

This thriller was a commercial failure.

He then turned to television, directing many dramas for the BBC.

In 1985, Frears returned to the cinema with "My Beautiful Launderette," a social comedy which dared to be open about homosexuality within London's Pakistani community.

It relaunched his career on the big screen.

He gained international recognition for "Dangerous Liaisons," and again with "The Grifters."

Frears does not write his own scripts.

He always works with screenwriters and has directed in many genres.

Allam: He doesn't consider himself an auteur at all, does he, Stephen?

He hasn't particularly got a style.

His grammar is classical film grammar, I suppose, and scripts come his way.

I mean, I asked him, "Where did 'Dirty Pretty Things' come from?"

I said, "Where did that?"

Because I loved that film.

I thought it was really, really wonderful.

And he said, "It just landed on my doormat and I liked it," you know.

It's a very nice position to be in.

I really like the surprise.

Someone saying, "Would you like to make this film?"

Oh, I see.

Oh, goodness me, I never thought of that.

I never wanted to make a film about the queen.

[Indistinct] [ Clack ] Morgan: He's what people call a writer's director.

But when he tries to figure out what the film is, so that he can direct it, the writer is the person he puts in the dock.

He likes to mess with writers and there's a sort of rather a dark process that happens with a director, with the writer, in the run-up to it, that is entirely unpleasant and where, you know, I try and destroy him and he tries to destroy me and it's war.

It is.

It really is war.

It's unpleasant.

He's quite tough and abusive in his criticism and so that just makes me retaliate.

The minute the film is finished, he's one of my closest friends.

[ Laughs ] You sometimes say, "I don't know -- What's going on in this scene?"

And he might say, "Well, I don't know.

Don't ask me."

[ Laughs ] But in the way that a scene can get played out, from an acting point of view, he can give you the space and the architecture to really find that out.

Otherwise, it looks odd [indistinct].

I love the way he'll say things and he'll make a joke or he'll goad you a little bit or he'll say, "Oh, she's a bit of a..." You know, he'll say something about the other actor that you're doing the scene in.

Not in a kind of psychological mind game way, but it's just he just kind of digs the soil up a little bit.

He just kind of, you know, he just kicks the s * *t around a little bit and it just makes -- I love it because I find that it makes you kind of have to reach for what he's looking for.

♪♪ ♪♪ Narrator: The days passed and the telephone lines buzzed between London and Balmoral.

Like an iron fist in a velvet glove, Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell were still trying to convince the queen that her stubbornness was creating a rift between her and the people.

Well, my advisors have been taking the temperature among people on the streets... ...and, well, the information I'm getting is that the mood is quite delicate.

He was very good at the "ma'am" bit.

He was always very respectful in the way that he talked to her.

But, of course, during that week, you know, he did have to say -- we all had to say some things that they probably, at times, didn't want to hear.

I doubt there is anyone who knows the British people more than I do, Mr. Blair, nor who has greater faith in their wisdom and judgment.

And it is my belief that they will, any moment, reject this -- this "mood," which is being stirred up by the press, in favor of a period of restrained grief and sober private mourning.

That's the way we do things in this country -- quietly, with dignity.

Perhaps the essence and the key to her long reign is that, that ability to glide forever without showing emotion.

So, we've done it for her, so.

[ Laughs ] What Helen did, sort of brilliantly, was breathe this humanity into her.

She gave her extraordinary nobility.

Lacey: The film, in Britain, was considered quite a shocking thing.

There's always been a convention, virtually a taboo, that you don't depict living members of the royal family.

And Peter Morgan has broken that taboo.

And he's done that with a fascinating combination of respect for what the monarchy stands for... ...but with a cold-eyed readiness to show their failings.

Frears: Peter stumbled onto this idea that you could write about the queen as a woman.

All you're ever told is, "Oh, she just wants to be a regular housewife."

Suddenly, she's shown as a woman, rather than as a figurehead.

And Peter, somehow, found a way to do that.

[ Crying ] It said in the script, "she cries."

I thought, "It doesn't feel right, going round and shooting into her face."

I mean, it is pure direction that put the camera there and not there.

I guess that's who you are, but I don't think about it a great deal.

But it always seemed to me -- It just seemed sort of polite, in some way.

The truth is, when you make films about real people, you feel a sort of responsibility to behave yourself.

♪♪ ♪♪ Oh, you're beauty.

I wrote this script in the mountains in Austria and, every day, I would either walk or run, you know, along the mountain path and, one day, I encountered a big stag.

And I remember, at the time, being quite conscious of not wanting to overthink it.

Clearly, people will jump to the conclusion that the stag is a metaphor for the crown, for her.

The stag was an image of superannuation.

In other words, it was time to be retired, as, indeed, was, and perhaps is, the queen.

So, it was two things -- people, animals -- who'd passed their sell by date.

That was what I thought we were filming.

In a way, a more important scene is not the scene of her seeing the stag in nature and the stag becoming a healing moment for her, a moment when she can cry and let it all out.

But in a way, a more important moment is the moment when she sees the stag has been killed... ...and the way the world is.

[ Door closes ] There he is.

There's a beauty, isn't he?

An imperial, ma'am.

14-pointer.

♪♪ I just knew that, for the queen, it's easier to have an emotional connection to something that is not human, perhaps, that is an animal.

And that she should be more upset by the death of the stag that week than Diana felt, not like a cruel act.

It felt like, perhaps, it needs the stag to access her emotion.

I think she's a woman, you know, and the more I read about her and the more I think about her, the clearer this is to me -- that she has an emotional block.

She is not just unwilling, but I think incapable, of empathic emotion and, certainly, of displaying it.

In my studies and research about the queen, I realized she is genuinely a religious person who genuinely believes in God and I so wanted -- and we did shoot it -- a scene when she's heard of Diana's death and she kneels at the end of the bed and prays to God -- for whatever.

We don't know what, but she prays.

And that was a scene I really, really wanted in the film, but I think Stephen, at that time, felt it ticked the film too much in a particular direction, so, he didn't use it, but there we go.

That's the power of the director.

I had a Communist editor.

[ Laughs ] Simply wouldn't allow it to go in.

Yes, she was always on that.

I don't know anything about it.

I mean, I remember one -- And I was doing a shot and then I said, "Alright, well, go and kneel," and so I did it without a great deal of care.

But I remember my Communist editor forbidding it.

[ Laughs ] [ Laughing ] That's funny, that Stephen would say that.

I don't have a memory of it.

I probably felt that it just didn't have a place in there.

But I don't have a memory, so I can't really comment right now, but it makes me laugh that Stephen thinks that I suggested that because he thinks I'm a Marxist.

[ Ring ] Good morning, Prime Minister.

Good morning, ma'am.

You've seen today's headlines?

Yes, I have.

Then I'm sure you'll agree the situation has become quite critical.

♪♪ Narrator: The British press was savaging the royal family.

The tabloids exploited the people's rage.

In an atmosphere of national psychodrama, the queen's authority and future were being challenged.

♪♪ I do remember being there at one conversation where he said... ..."Look, it's really unfair, the way that you're being portrayed.

It's really, this sort of public reaction is over-the-top.

But I think it's important that, you know, that you do show that you understand it and show that you, contrary to the way that people are trying to portray this, that you do care."

Well, strangely, in this week, only one poll was taken, which confirms what we hear in the film, that 1 in 4 people in Britain want to abolish the monarchy.

And it would seem that the people polled were not mad monarchists because, when they're asked, "Do you think there'll be a monarchy in 100 years' time?

", most of them say no, but, actually, yes, 1 in 4 want to abolish the monarchy, but at that moment, 3 in 4 were actually happy to keep it.

Something's happened.

There's been a change, some... shift in values.

When you no longer understand your people, Mummy, maybe it is time to hand it over to the next generation.

Oh, don't be ridiculous.

Remember the vow you took?

I declare that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.

♪♪ ♪♪ Harries: We wrapped.

Then Stephen had to go off on a tour to promote one of his other films, so, the film had to stay in the cutting room with just the editor sort of just assembling and holding it.

Then we just waited a few weeks, until Stephen got back, and he and I went to see it together.

And it was terrible.

It was truly terrible.

I don't know why it was so terrible, but it was terrible.

At the end cut, which was about two hours, maybe two and a half hours long -- It was really just an assembly full of archive and bits and bobs and stuff like that.

So, at the end of the cut, Stephen looked at me and said-- [ As Frears ] Oh, dear.

Well, that's a disaster.

That's a bloody mess, isn't it?

The feeling was, "We need to do more with Helen."

But, actually, what the story really needed was more with Blair.

It needed more politics to make it less political, in a funny way.

In order to connect with Helen's -- or, as it were, the queen's, humanity in this, it needed to be more of a -- she needed to feel more under attack.

So, we ended up reshooting all of the Blair stuff, which, at first, was like, "Was I that bad in what I was doing that we had to reshoot it all?"

And I'm sure there was an element of that.

But Stephen very graciously said that, no, it was him and he'd got it wrong and all that kind of stuff.

But I think there was, as well, a feeling that, because the two main characters in the piece spend so little time together in it, how do you keep that dynamic going on those phone call scenes?

The truth is that both characters, the queen and Blair, were passive.

You know, I don't know what Blair did that week.

I mean, I'm sure he wasn't arranging barricades on the Mall or anything like that, but we made him as active as we could.

Have you seen the papers?

No, I thought I'd give them a miss today.

Of course I've seen the papers.

Not bad, eh?

"Your Majesty, come down to London."

[ As Elizabeth II ] Who says so?

Tony Blair.

Mr. Father of the Nation.

[ Melancholy tune plays ] ♪♪ Narrator: It was the day before the funeral.

Thanks to Tony Blair's persuasiveness, the queen finally yielded to public exasperation and returned to Buckingham Palace with the royal family.

As a sign of reconciliation, the queen greeted the crowd in person.

♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicks ] ♪♪ And she finally addressed the nation in a televised speech.

First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.

She was an exceptional and gifted human being.

In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.

You can see she's pretty pissed off, I think, that she's been kind of forced, her hand has been forced.

And she can't quite disguise that.

So what I say to you now, as your queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.

-Heart.

What heart?

-First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.

-Doesn't mean a word of this.

That's not the point.

What she's doing is extraordinary.

In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity -That's how to survive.

-to laugh and to smile.

If the queen had not done what she'd done, if the queen had said, "I'm not coming to any funeral for this girl," then that would've been a completely different thing.

In other words, we're going in that direction, that the British monarchy was actually in danger of being abolished, and that's what makes all the last minute scrambling, which actually created this extraordinary national ritual of the funeral so important.

[ Suspenseful music plays ] ♪♪ I just feel it is my duty to be here to say goodbye to Diana, my princess.

I don't think I would've done this for any other member of the royal family.

I really don't.

♪♪ Narrator: That day, Diana's funeral became a gigantic media event, watched by two billion television viewers worldwide.

Three million mourners crowded the streets of London to watch the cortège bearing the coffin to Westminster Abbey.

I remember watching the TV of the funeral and an American commentator saying, "Who would've guessed all those years ago that it would end in tragedy?"

And I say, "Well, I knew it would end in tragedy, so, why are you being paid more than me?"

♪♪ Narrator: The film ends with an encounter between Tony Blair and Elizabeth II.

The closing scenes were rewritten at the request of the film's American coproducer, Scott Rudin.

Scott said, "There's a missing scene.

We got to have Helen, as the queen, talking about her childhood, with Tony Blair, in a one-on-one and they're back at the palace."

So, this became the final scene, the very, very important scene, actually.

He said, "This is the scene that will win the Oscar.

This is the scene you need."

It was for the queen to show more emotion, you see, and to kind of get a sense of what it had cost her and to get a sense of her as a -- to have a vulnerability, I think.

And, yeah, so it became known as the Get Helen an Oscar scene, and it worked!

[ Laughter ] Where was the Get Michael an Oscar scene?

[ Laughter ] 1 in 4, you said wanted to get rid of me?

For about half an hour.

But then you came down to London and all that went away.

I've never been hated like that before.

That must've been difficult.

Yes.

Very.

Really, I think what it was was a little, tiny, little opening of the door into the heart of the queen because you hadn't really -- you'd only seen, really, her public face and you just needed a little, tiny, little view into her personal, you know, feelings and thought.

You were so young when you became queen.

Well.

Yes.

Years ago.

♪♪ Narrator: Only a few months after this final scene had been shot, "The Queen" was shown at the Venice Film Festival.

It was the first time the feature was screened in public.

I find it very difficult to watch movies that I'm in, anyway, and this film, in particular, it was, you know, just too terrifying, the thought of watching it and if I'd completely blown it.

And in Venice, they sit you in a very exposed seat, so you can't escape, you know, you've got to sit and watch it.

So, the lights go down, it's quiet, and the film comes up and the very first shot is of me turning and looking straight at the camera.

[ Laughing ] My husband, who hadn't seen any stills or anything -- and it is silent cinema -- just went, "Ah ha ha ha ha!"

He just thought it was the funniest thing, to see me dressed as the queen.

He let out this incredibly loud laugh all on his own.

It was incredibly embarrassing.

[ Laughs ] And that was the beginning.

And then I watched it and I thought, "Wow, no, that's okay.

That's okay.

It's good.

It's okay."

When we ran "The Queen," you could feel the warmth towards the end of the picture and then this extraordinary moment where everyone got up.

I don't know, seven, eight minutes, ten minutes?

I don't know.

It felt like hours of people just clapping and shouting.

Probably the best moment we ever had.

I mean, the Oscar was wonderful, but that was the moment that we thought, "Oh, my God, we've got something!"

Yeah, we pulled it off.

Narrator: Helen Mirren received the Best Actress Award in Venice.

She was also crowned with an Oscar at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

"The Queen" was released worldwide in 2006.

It was an immense success.

♪♪ I went to see the film with my daughter and it's quite funny, going to something like that and people are looking at you and prodding each other and what have you and at one point, quite loudly, during the film, my daughter says, "Dad, why do they always do you like you're a yob?"

I think I was a caricature.

I think Cherie was a caricature.

I think Philip was a bit of a caricature.

I think the courtiers were caricatures.

But I think the queen and Tony Blair were actually done as characters of real depth and complexity.

And they are, and that's true.

Now, the things that are said between them are not true, but there are kind of grains of truth in there.

Somebody very, very close to the queen told me that she had to force her husband, who was a royal servant, to go and see "The Queen," the movie, because he didn't want to, and afterwards, he came out saying, "It's all wrong" -- in other words, the details are wrong -- "and it's all right," it's all correct, because the spirit of it is true and so something new has been created.

And, you know, it's pointless to go niggling away at this detail and that detail.

Obviously, you've got to get the uniforms right and all that sort of thing.

But we don't know exactly what was said in any of these situations, so, it is perfectly legitimate to invent.

♪♪ Narrator: In 2016, Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday.

She had never been more popular.

Unlike Tony Blair, who was still serving as prime minister when the film was released.

He was in disgrace for supporting the controversial invasion of Iraq.

Crowd: [ Chanting ] People's feelings about Blair were changing and you couldn't -- you couldn't have him suddenly say, "Perhaps we should invade Iraq."

[ Laughs ] I mean, you couldn't get at your sort of fury with Blair.

You just had to bite your lip.

After the film came out, I remember being really surprised by sort of people seeing in it what they wanted to see in it, which was interesting.

Or certainly the people I talked to.

You know, some people would say, "You know, I'm so glad that you've given a sympathetic portrayal of him," and then other people going, "Yeah, well done, you really gave it to him."

It's the same film.

You're not watching different performances.

So, eventually, I thought that must be okay.

Yeah, but that was -- Yeah, everyone sort of saw what they wanted to see, certainly in the Blair aspect of it.

And people tended, on the whole, just to go, "Yeah, the queen is great, in't she?"

♪♪ I've never heard him talk about it.

I've never heard him -- I think, if he had seen, he'd have said something about it.

Mm.

And what about the queen?

I think the queen has seen it.

I have my sources.

Narrator: The acclaim that greeted "The Queen" encouraged Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan to continue in the same vein.

In 2017, Stephen Frears directed a film about another great English queen -- Victoria.

Peter Morgan wrote a stage play, "The Audience," in which Helen Mirren again played the queen.

He is also the writer of the highly praised series "The Crown," a biography of Elizabeth II.

♪♪ For the most part, she's been a remarkably, I mean, sort of breathtakingly stable influence on the country and we are a much more jittery bunch, the people of these islands, much more warlike, jittery, inflamed.

We're not a naturally docile people.

We're a naturally opinionated, electric, warlike bunch.

Were controversial and difficult island people.

[ Cheering and applause ] And the stability that she encourages -- we owe her a huge debt of gratitude for that.

I mean, she had a bad week, one bad week in her life.

Well, I've had more than that.

[ Laughs ] Most people have had more than that.

And, in a way, you're quite grateful you've had more than that because that's where the excitement has come from.

She's accepted a lot of dullness.

It's not been a tremendously interesting life.

Or if you want a more emotional life, don't be queen or don't be queen now.

So, she's buttoned her lip and served... ...in a way that I couldn't.

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