Joanna Lumley received a message of support from Queen Elizabeth after she sent her a copy of her book about the monarch.
The 'Absolutely Fabulous' actress made sure the 95-year-old ruler received her own copy of 'A Queen for All Seasons: A Celebration of Queen Elizabeth II on her Platinum Jubilee' and although she isn't sure the queen has read the profile, she loves the idea that she has at least seen the tome.
She said: “I sent her a copy of the book. I asked the aides of the palace, they said, ‘We’ll see that it’s placed before Her Majesty’.
"I love the idea that it went in on a trolley and it was placed before Her Majesty, who might have even picked it up and looked at it with that lovely Andy Warhol image on the front.
"Her Majesty sent a message to say she was grateful I’d taken the trouble to send the book and sent her warmest wishes.”
The 75-year-old actress insisted the queen is more down to earth than people realised and recalled how the monarch once "got on her knees" to light a fire herself.
Speaking on 'The Jonathan Ross Show', she said: "She is down to earth. A friend of mine who was a grand old painter, he painted the Queen several times… one day she was sitting for him and she said, ‘Do you think it’s cold in here?’ She said, ‘I think it’s cold.’
"She got on her knees, got some twigs… set a little fire going [in the hearth]. You kind of don’t imagine the queen doing that.”
Joanna is friends with Prince Charles and has met many of the royal family over the years, and she thinks they are all "kindly, good-hearted people".
She said: “If you do meet any member of the Royal family, they are so kind and so friendly and so polite and not grand. You’ll find kindly, good-hearted people.”
And the former 'New Avengers' star believes the clan are "much closer" than people assume following reports of a rift with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
She said: "I think we all look from the outside and we don’t actually know what’s going on on the inside – we second guess it.
"And I think we all believe television shows that are made about them, like 'The Crown'. I don’t watch it because I know it’s made up... these are real people and suddenly they’re made up to be different people and I don’t think it’s right.
"I don’t think we really know what goes on behind anybody’s closed doors. I think, I have a suspicion, that that family’s much closer than we think.”
Watch the interview with Joanna on 'The Jonathan Ross Show' on ITV and ITV Hub on Saturday (11.12.21) night.
