Celebrities Who Are Scratching Their Heads Over Their Encounters With The Royal Family
The Royal Family is always in the headlines these days, but for as much as we read about them, they're still somehow shrouded in mystery. One can only imagine what actually meeting a royal is like and no one knows what to expect since they hardly give interviews. Thankfully, celebrities are important enough to be so luckyas to meet members of the royal family. You'd think that when celebrities meet other celebrities, it's no big deal. But when it comes to the Royal Family, celebs are just as starstruck as the rest of us.
Tom Hanks Knows The Queen's Go-To Drink
Tom Hanks couldn't quite figure out how he was invited to a state dinner with the Queen and then-President Obama. Hanks recalled that before the event, he received a letter that explained how to dress and the proper etiquette to follow. The actor also revealed that the Queen can be chatty if she feels so inclined.
During the dinner, Hanks recalled on CBS This Morning, “Out of nowhere we’re just sitting there and I notice this gloved hand. The Queen was sitting right next to me and this gloved hand placed a tumbler of clear liquid… I looked at it and I said, ‘What is Your Majesty drinking this evening?’ She said, ‘Ooh, martini!’”
Kate Winslet Was Touched By The Queen
In 2017, Kate Winslet was made a CBE, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, for her “services rendered to drama.” For the special occasion, Winslet had the opportunity to meet the Queen herself.
“First of all, she’s got the most incredible skin,” Winslet said on The Graham Norton Show. “And then she said, ‘Well congratulations on all your achievements.’ She said, ‘You’re a mother aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and she said, ‘Well that is the only job,’” Winslet recalled, adding that it was the most touching moment of her encounters with royalty.
Helen Mirren Gets "Queen-itis" When She Sees The Queen
English actress Helen Mirren has had experience playing royalty. Most recently, she played Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film The Queen. Mirren has even met the Queen in real life but told Jimmy Fallon that she was incredibly nervous.
“When you meet the Queen, almost everyone gets it, you get this thing I call ‘queen-itis,’ which is like a terrible virus that suddenly hits you the minute you’re in front of the Queen… You start saying weird things like, ‘Oh, it’s terribly good fun, wasn’t it?’ and ‘Frightfully nice to meet you, ma’am’ This weird voice comes out.”
Allison Janney Told Kate Middleton To Take Off Her Shoes
America’s own Allison Janney was in London, where she won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in 2017. At the British Oscars equivalent, Janney had a “lovely” encounter with a pregnant Kate Middleton, but it was a little awkward.
By the end of the ceremony, Janney had ditched her heels and started walking barefoot when she encountered the Duchess of Cambridge, who was still in her own heels despite being pregnant. “I told her that she should take her shoes off ‘cause she’s pregnant and it was an awkward moment… because I called her ‘honey’ and that might not have been royal etiquette,” Janney revealed on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Margot Robbie Offended Prince Harry
Australian actress Margot Robbie lived in London for a short while. One night, she attended a party at the home of fellow actress Suki Waterhouse. A polite man was holding the door open and helped even helped Robbie look for something she had dropped on the way in.
Little did she realize that that polite man was none other than Prince Harry. She even took a picture with him in a photo booth, which she shared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “When I saw him in those glasses I was like, ‘Oh my god I didn’t know Ed Sheeran was at the party’ and he got really offended,” she recalled with a laugh.
Reese Witherspoon Was All Smiles With Kate Middleton
Reese Witherspoon was incredibly excited when she got an invitation to a fundraiser that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expected to attend. In 2012, Witherspoon told The Ellen Show that she must have tried on six different outfits to prepare for the event.
“She was really nice. She was lovely and she’s so composed, and she just seems like such a lady,” Witherspoon recalled. The actress was also bearing what her husband calls her “double barrel,” which is when she smiles so big she looks like a child. “I mean y’all, she’s a princess!” Witherspoon exclaimed.
Prince George Gave Ben Affleck's Son A Cold
Ben Affleck had an encounter with the royal family in a way you wouldn’t expect. During a trip to the U.K., Affleck took his children to an indoor play palace that was relatively empty before he realized who else was in the building.
The other adults were well-dressed and wearing headpieces. Thinking they were the establishment's security, it took Affleck a while before he realized that they were, in fact, the security detail for Prince George and Princess Charlotte. “Those kids were in there playing [and] my son was in there playing. So now I can tell him like, ‘You got a cold from the King of England,’” Affleck said on The Graham Norton Show.
Prince William Gave Matt Smith Tips On How To Play His Grandfather
You might recognize English actor Matt Smith as the eleventh incarnation of The Doctor on Doctor Who or more recently as Prince Philip from Netflix’s The Crown. Luckily, Smith told The Graham Norton Show that he got some royal advice from Prince William when it came to portraying The Queen’s husband.
“The lady who was doing the lineup said, ‘And this is Matt and he’s about to play – and I thought, ‘don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it’ – ‘he’s about to play Prince Philip.’ And then she said, ‘Have you got any advice for him?’ and I thought, ‘God I’m gonna die,’ and all [Prince William] said was, ‘Legend. He’s an absolute legend.’”
Matt Smith Knows Prince Philip Didn't Care For His Portrayal
As for what real-life Prince Philip thought about Matt Smith playing him on The Crown, Smith wouldn't know for sure since he never met this particular royal in person. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an idea.
A show-business friend of Smith’s was at dinner with the Queen and Prince Philip, who asked the friend if he was involved with The Crown. The friend replied that he didn’t but by the end of dinner, he was curious. Smith recalled, “So he asked him, ‘Philip, have you watched The Crown?’ and he said [Prince Philip] turned around and went, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’”
Mark Hamill Had Some Pressing Questions For The Princes
Mark Hamill had the opportunity to meet Prince William and Prince Harry at the London premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The actor, who plays Luke Skywalker in the films, knew this was his chance to ask a very pressing question.
“I said, ‘Can you settle this for me? My mother was Queen Amadala, my father was Lord Vader, my sister is Princess Leia, doesn’t that make me royalty?’ I was hoping, you know, that they would agree. William said, ‘Well absolutely, I think that should make you royalty.’ Harry said, ‘Hmm, I think I need more information,’” Hamill recalled on The Graham Norton Show.
Michael Sheen's Next Project Intrigued The Queen
Actor Michael Sheen has played former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in multiple productions, so it was about time that he met the Queen in 2009. That year he was granted an OBE, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
Sheen recalled on The Graham Norton Show, “She said, ‘So what are you doing next?’ ...So I said, ‘I’m doing another film about ex-Prime Minister Blair, and this one’s about his relationship with President Bill Clinton,’ and she got a little sort of sparkle in her eye and she went, ‘Ooh, that must be awfully difficult.’”
Prince Philip Thought Cate Blanchett Was A DVD Technician
In 1998, Cate Blanchett was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth. Ten years later, she had a chance encounter with the husband of one of her character’s real-life descendants, Prince Philip.
She recalled of a lunch she was invited to, “I sat next to him and he said, ‘What do you do?’ and I said, ‘Well I’m an actor,’ and he said, ‘Well I was given a DVD player for Christmas and I can’t work [it] out’ ...I tried to be of some use.” Though we can’t say what transpired after that interaction, everyone at The Graham Norton Show had a good laugh at that anecdote.
Prince Charles Didn't Recognize Ewan McGregor After Watching His Movie
Ewan McGregor is well known for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, but when he met Prince Charles in 2001, the royal didn’t make the connection. McGregor met Prince Charles at the premiere of Moulin Rouge, in which he played Nicole Kidman’s boyfriend.
“I was standing next to Nicole Kidman and he came up – now bear in mind, I’d been acting in Britain for some time at this point, maybe ten years or something – and it’s the premiere for the film that I’m in with Nicole, and [Prince Charles] said, ‘What do you do in the film?’” the actor hilariously recalled on The Graham Norton Show.
The Queen Thought It Was The Second Time She Met Kunal Nayyar
The Big Bang Theory actor Kunal Nayyar and his wife were invited to meet the Queen at a special reception in Buckingham Palace to celebrate the official start of the UK-India Year of Culture in 2017.
Nayyar told The Ellen Show how incredibly nervous he was to meet the monarch. “They open the door and the Queen enters and as soon as she enters, I begin to have the worst panic attack of my life… I just took her hand and I said, ‘Nice to meet you Your Majesty’ or something like that and she said, ‘Nice to see you again’ and I was like, okay but I’m not Dev Patel. I don’t know [who] she thought I was.”
David Duchovny Had To Give Prince Charles The 4-1-1
Actor David Duchovny found himself at a concert with Prince Charles back in the ‘90s. During their outing, Duchovny came in handy when it came to explaining modern lingo to Prince Charles.
A band at that concert was performing a song called “Booty Call.” “They say ‘booty call’ over and over again and I saw Prince Charles just kind of looking perplexed and he said, ‘booty call…’ and I said, ‘well I can explain it to you, it’s a little off-color, but I can do it,’ and he said, ‘yes please,’” Duchovny recalled on The Late Late Show with James Corden. After Duchovny explained the term, he recalls, Prince Charles replied with a pensive “Oh.”
Simon Pegg Thought He Broke The Queen
Actor Simon Pegg met the Queen and Prince Philip at the premiere of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Pegg recalls, “I thought I broke her, to be honest… [The Queen] always must speak first, so she takes as much time as she wants to do that. So she came up to me… and I was just waiting for her to speak. I swear it was like 30 seconds and I started to bead sweat, and then she just went, ‘and what do you do?’ and I almost hugged her because I thought, thank god you’re still with us.”
Prince Philip Then Asked Pegg An Interesting Question
Pegg recalled on The Graham Norton Show that things got even more awkward when he met Prince Philip next. “The brilliant one was Philip came by… in Narnia I did the voice of a mouse and someone told him what I was doing, and he said, ‘When did you realize you had the voice of a mouse?’”
For what it’s worth, Pegg was sure his performance moved the Queen. He also recalls that during his big scene, “The Queen was – I swear to God – sitting maybe five seats down from me wearing 3d glasses… and she dabbed her eye with a tissue.”
Shawn Mendes Suffered An Awkward Silence With The Queen
“Stitches” singer Shawn Mendes had the honor of performing at the Queen’s 92nd birthday in 2018 and he knows better than anyone how awkward encountering the royals can be. He explained on The Ellen Show:
“I’m standing there waiting on stage and the Queen just walks up next to me, and she’s just standing there, and I’m like, looking at her and you can’t say anything. You’re not allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you first, so it was like this very 10 minutes of just awkward silence between me and the Queen.”
Mendes Was Starstruck By Prince Harry And Meghan Markle
The Queen wasn’t the only royal family member that Shawn Mendes encountered. He regrets it now, but he could have had the chance to talk to the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Sussex if not for his cold feet.
“This is going to be my biggest regret forever. I was walking down the halls and I see [Meghan and Harry] in one room… just talking... And I walked in with this confidence and the second they kind of felt me coming, I just turned around and my body went numb and I was like, I can’t do it, I can’t do it. I’ve never been so starstruck like that.”
One Direction Met Prince William and Kate Middleton
During the good ‘ol days of 2014, One Direction were still together and they had the prime opportunity to meet their future King and Queen. The boys appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! And recounted their first meeting with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
“They’re really nice,” Harry Styles began, “but you’re also meeting someone in the most unnatural meeting ever.” According to One Direction, there are at least a dozen people around instructing you on what you can and cannot say. Niall Horan added that Kate Middleton is referred to as “Ma’am” and Prince William is called “Sir.”
