Proof That the Queen Really, Really Loves Jokes

Updated on 5/21/2015 at 3:50 PM

Michael Caine is at the Cannes Film Festival promoting his new film Youth, in which he plays a fictitious, aging composer who is asked to perform his most famous work for Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip. Art imitates reality for Michael in one respect; he has met the queen on numerous occasions. Michael recounted two royal stories at a Wednesday press conference for his movie at Cannes. In the first, he emphasizes the queen's well-known reputation as a joke-lover:

"I was at a party with her once, and there was a very dull man on her other side. She eventually turned to me and said, 'Mister Caine, do you know any jokes?' I said, 'None that I could tell you!' She said, 'Well, while you're thinking about it, I'll tell you one.' So she told me a joke! The most annoying thing is that I can't remember what the joke was. She has got a great sense of humor."

That wasn't the only time Michael — excuse me, Sir Michael — rubbed shoulders with the queen. Her sense of humor was also in evidence on the day he was knighted.

"She knighted me once. You only get knighted once, and I nearly got into trouble there. She didn't say very much. She [only] said to me, 'I have a feeling you have been doing what you do for a very long time.' I almost said, 'And so have you.' But I thought, 'Michael, keep your mouth shut. You're about to lose your knighthood! You'll end up in a tower, beheaded!'"

He needn't have worried. It seems like the queen knows a joke when she hears one.

Michael Caine on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

Michael Caine and his wife, Shakira, in London on the day in 2000 when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.