- The BBC is airing a documentary about the Queen's coronation 65 years ago.
- It features a rare on-camera, sit-down conversation with the Queen.
- It took the film's producers 22 years to get her to do it.
- They won over palace gatekeepers with a track-record of thorough, well-reported documentaries, they told Business Insider.
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It took 22 years for the BBC to do the near-impossible and persuade the Queen to sit for an interview
Business Insider spoke with the producer of 'The Coronation,' where presenter Alastair Bruce got an unprecedented chance to talk on-camera with Queen Elizabeth.
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This weekend the BBC is broadcasting a journalistic rarity: A full, sit-down conversation with Queen Elizabeth II.
The project, a retrospective on her coronation ceremony in 1953, was 22 years in the making, and a media coup given the Queen's historic reluctance to engage directly with the press in any way.
Her Majesty has granted behind-the-scenes access to royal life before. She also gives occasional televised speeches. But "The Coronation," which airs on BBC1 at 8 p.m. on Sunday, will be one of her first televised exchanges with a journalist.
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It also shows her interacting with various crowns involved in the ceremony, and giving a vivid description of the experience of being installed as ruler of huge swathes of the world (when she took the throne large parts of Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean were still British colonies).
For decades an interview has been a boundary she and Buckingham Palace officials were unwilling to cross and, indeed, the BBC and presenter Alastair Bruce prefer to characterise the encounter in "The Coronation" as a conversation. He was not allowed to ask her questions, but he did at least ask one, according to the Radio Times.
Nevertheless, it is a huge novelty and only came about after a respected team of experts, commissioned by the BBC, convinced Her Majesty.
In an interview with Business Insider, producer Anthony Geffen said securing access to the Queen for himself and Bruce was a 22-year enterprise.
It eventually came off because they impressed the palace with the impressive track record of Geffen's company, Atlantic Productions, and the personal expertise of presenter and royal expert Alastair Bruce.
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The occasion is the 65th anniversary of her coronation. The discussion sees the Queen's reflecting on what it was like to wear her coronation crown, which weighs almost 5 pounds, and her uncomfortable journey to Westminster Abbey 65 years ago.
Teaser footage released ahead of the broadcast shows the Queen discussing the artefact, which she recalled being heavy enough to break her neck.
The Queen's advice on wearing a crown - BBC News
Geffen told Business Insider: "Alastair Bruce and I started trying to get permission to do this project 22 years ago, and it's taken a long period of time for it to happen.
"
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Geffen's past works include documentaries with big names like David Attenborough, Judi Dench, and a major series on the British Parliament, "Inside the Commons," which he said particularly impressed the palace.
He continued: "
Of the film itself, Geffen said: "You can really see the Queen in a different light. You finally hear from the one person who can tell us about that [the coronation]."
Bruce, who speaks to the Queen in the documentary, added that the making of the documentary was the first time the Queen had touched her coronation crown in 65 years.
He said: "She may have seen it, but she hasn't touched it since. It was very moving to see her lean forward to check the weight of it."
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Recalling what it was like to wear the crown at her coronation in the film, the Queen says: "You can't look down to read the speech... Because if you did, your neck would break."
And on her journey on the golden carriage that took her from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey? "Horrible."
The documentary also features eyewitness accounts of people who were part of the coronation, such as a maid of honour who almost fainted in the abbey, and a choirboy who had to sing solo when his fellow choristers lost their voices, the BBC said.
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