HBO(LONDON) — If you love The Crown on Netflix, why not spend some time with the woman who inspired it?
Queen of the World, a new documentary on Queen Elizabeth II, debuts Monday night on HBO at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Filmed over a year, the documentary includes behind-the-scenes moments with the Queen and the rest of the royal family, including Prince Charles and Camilla; Princess Anne; Prince William and Catherine; Prince Harry and Meghan; and the Countess of Wessex.
Executive producer Nick Kent and his team had extraordinary access to the Queen, and tells ABC Radio that the most surprising thing he learned about Her Majesty is how funny she is.
“She’s got a fantastic sense of humor and you see it in the documentary, and in some ways you can understand why she would need that,” he explains. “Because the queen meets thousands of people every year and many of these people are quite intimidated at the prospect of meeting the Queen and one of the ways in which she puts people at their ease is through her sense of humor.”
Kent also says that even though the Queen is 92 years, old, “retirement is not a word in her vocabulary so she’s gonna keep going on and on…she’s very much still in the driving seat.”
As for why we’re all so fascinated with the Queen and the British monarchy in general, Kent says, “It’s an extraordinary success story. I mean, how many monarchies in the world can you name that have survived 1,000 years or more? And this one is still alive and kicking. It’s pretty exceptional.”
In addition, Kent says, in a world where politicians are “doing a pretty poor job at bringing people together,” he feels the monarchy is “a unifying force.”
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.