According to this link, the actress playing The Queen, Dame Helen Mirren, descends herself from the Russian aristocracy but the article does not elaborate more into it. This
and another site says her father was a driving instructor and musician and her grandfather stranded in England after the Russian revolution. But Hello Magazine is a little more brutal with her ancestry and calls her the
daugther of a Russian taxi driver: Ouch!
http://www.hellomagazine.com/profiles/helenmirren/
Come to think of it, I don't remember any other actress who has played both Queens ever. Dame Helen Mirren has just gone to the record and trivia books with this achievement.
This other link talks about her characterizations on both Elizabeths:
For Mirren, there's nothing easy about being a queen
quote from the above link:
...After wowing audiences earlier this year in HBO's four-hour telefilm "Elizabeth I," Helen Mirren exhibits a regal bearing again in Stephen ("Mrs. Henderson Presents") Frears' "The Queen," a controversial drama about Queen Elizabeth II's inability to comprehend the depth of a shocked public's response to the death of Princess Diana....
Can't wait for the film to open for all of us in October. I guess in the USA it will be one of those limited screening films in artsy movie theaters, nothing major. I'll see it and tell you my impression then.
Ysabel, you are in NY, any way you could get to go to that film festival?