The Queen Watch the trailer for Stephen Frears' drama, starring Helen Mirren.

The Queen Clip Watch a scene featuring Michael Sheen and Helen Mirren.

Following the success of small-screen political drama The Deal, starring Michael Sheen as a beleaguered Tony Blair, producer Andy Harries approached director Stephen Frears with an equally incendiary script by Peter Morgan. It saw the Queen and the Prime Minister juggling the burdens of leadership in the aftermath of Princess Diana's death. "I could always see that making it was cheeky, impertinent, controversial, but what Peter wrote wasn't controversial," insists Frears. "It wasn't sensationalised. There was nothing I didn't believe – nothing but tiny details. It was in principle very believable. It's really a guess, but it's based on thought and there are four or five people collectively agreeing that it makes sense."

With a script that everyone could get behind, The Queen was swiftly given the green light. Having worked with Harries on the hit series Prime Suspect, Mirren was first choice to play Her Majesty, and of course Sheen had already proved he could do a mean Tony Blair.

Portraying a Prime Minister and a Queen who are still in power would have kept the legal department busy, but these backstage wrangles were of little interest to Frears. "I'm sure that all went on," he says, "but the truth is, it was all kept away from me." He adds that his approach was simply to tell "a human story" irrespective of the public roles of its two key characters. At the same time, however, he was wary of pandering to public perceptions. "When we were editing it, any whiff of bigotry... well, you could tell the things that seemed unfair or a bit cheap and those were the things that came out. But it's such a fine line because there are many aspects about the institution that we criticise."

I could always see that making it was cheeky, impertinent, and controversial.

Before stepping inside the cutting room Frears had to tread that line with Mirren, and he says there were a few bumps along the way. "First of all she was clay in my hands!" he jokes. "Of course the Queen is famous for not flaunting her feelings so any suggestion of that – of giving an account of her feelings – Helen was very, very insistent that that was very unbelievable. We are in essence making a film about a woman who doesn't show her feelings. Well, first of all you have to deconstruct the script and there are opportunities for her to do that. All that stuff by the river with the stag gives her an opportunity to show her feelings, but had the Queen somehow suffered a breakdown you wouldn't have believed it and Helen defended that very tenaciously – she put me in my place."

Given all the tangling over this issue, it's surprising that Frears didn't include a key moment from real life: the Queen bowing to Diana's passing coffin. "I wanted to use that," he says. "It's very, very moving. Unfortunately ITV buggered the shot up, having the camera in the wrong place, and the BBC wouldn't let us use it. When Diana did that broadcast [on Panorama] the Palace was understandably pissed off and suddenly the Queen's speech is on ITV. They started transferring their favours to ITV so the BBC wouldn't let us use it because it might displease the Palace."

Indeed the momentous incident was played down by the media in the days following Diana's funeral and Frears eventually admits that it passed him by. "I made the film and I only discovered it really when... well, it was my wife on the Queen's 80th birthday, three or four months ago, who said 'Oh, there was this extraordinary bit...' and then curiously enough Pathé said, 'Oh, there was this extraordinary bit.' And of course it was extraordinary, but I simply wasn't here for the funeral so I found out about it too late. We had already spent the money, so to go out and find the money to do that, find a place and start building and all that, economically it was just..." It's clear that Frears is frustrated by the omission. "Yes, I could've done it," he nods. "If I could've bought the BBC footage, I could've put Helen in place of the Queen and recreated it technically. I would've loved to have used it. It was so dignified and graceful. Blame the ITV cameraman."

The Queen is released in UK cinemas on Friday 15th September 2006.

Stella Papamichael | Published 14 September 06

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