Elizabeth I

On his experience filming the series, Eddie Redmayne had this story to tell: "The director, Tom Hooper said "One last thing: Eddie, have you ever been on a horse?" I said "Yes". Cut to Lithuania, two weeks later, a huge Elizabethan street, Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons are standing at this balcony, and there's Tom, cameras, rain machines, fifty Lithuanian extras, spurs attached to my feet, and I'm thinking, "At what point do I tell them that I have never, ever ridden a horse?" It was then that I realized a big part of the cliché of actors lying in auditions is that you should probably try to do the thing you said you can do before filming starts. Anyway, I nearly killed people as the horse galloped off at a hundred miles an hour after I gave it the slightest nudge. Tom came out with his megaphone and shouted, "You're a fucking liar, Redmayne!"

Elizabeth uses a fork when having dinner with Leicester before the battle against Spain but the fork was not introduced to England until the early 17th century when James I was on the throne.

When the series was repeated on British TV in 2006, the footage of the Babington plotters being tortured was cut, and the execution of Queen Mary was cut so that she was beheaded with one stroke, although the scene of Leicester telling Elizabeth that it had taken two strokes was left in.

Featured in The 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (2006)