Danish Queen Who Told Her Grandkids to Get a Job Gets a Second One Herself

The 83-year-old Queen Margrethe II of Denmark recently worked as the production and costume designer on a Netflix film.

By Kady Ruth Ashcraft  |  October 10, 2023 | 8:20pm
CelebritiesRoyals
Danish Queen Who Told Her Grandkids to Get a Job Gets a Second One Herself
Photo:Mark Cuthbert (Getty Images)

Someone grab Kim Kardashian out of one of those full body scanners she’s addicted to and let her know that there is someone who seemingly does want to work these days! Queen Margrethe II of Denmark took on a side gig recently as the costume and production designer for the Netflix film, Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction which came out last month.

According to the New York Times, the 83-year-old queen, who’s been on the throne for 51 years, designed just as many costumes for the film. The Netflix flick is an adaptation of the Karen Blixen 1962 fairytale about a professional seductress hired to help the (fictional) queen’s son find a mate. A sexy tale for the (real) queen to take on! “Karen Blixen’s stories have always fascinated me, with their aesthetic tales, their imagination and their, to me, image-creating worlds” the queen said in a statement to Netflix in 2021. Margrethe also created nearly 100 decoupages, or collages, that served as inspiration for the sets.

Margrethe wasn’t paid for her work on the film, though this is her third time working with JJ Film, a Danish production company. She previously helped with production design for the short films De Vilde Svaner and The Snow Queen. She has also designed costumes for the Royal Danish Ballet as well as shown her artwork at Florence’s Stibbert Museum and France’s Musée de Cahors Henri-Martin.

And the costumes for Ehrengard are wonderful—sort of a toned-down, crisper-cut Bridgerton aesthetic. The Times explained that Margrethe based her costumes off of the Biedermeier period (1815 to 1848), a similar though more conservative aesthetic than the resplendent Regency era.

What’s particularly tickling me is that just a year ago, Queen Margrethe basically told her grandkids to “get a job” and drop their formal titles. The palace released a statement that “Her Majesty The Queen wishes to create the framework for the four grandchildren to be able to shape their own lives to a much greater extent without being limited by the special considerations and duties that a formal affiliation with the Royal House of Denmark as an institution involves.”

In response, her son reportedly bemoaned the inconvenience his children would face, “What will they write in my passport now?” Knowing that Grandma Mags was working a side gig on a movie set while shooting off emails telling her grandkids to get it together, makes this scenario that much funnier to me.

 
Join the discussion...