‘Queen Silvia’ Ditches the Glass Slipper for Un-Cinderella Royal Romance

Every royal romance eventually gets the Cinderella treatment: the humble girl, the dashing prince, the ball, the happily-ever-after.

Not so Queen Silvia. The new European aristocratic romance, which has its world premiere at international TV conference Mipcom tonight, ditches the fairy tale for a more realistic take on an ordinary girl who finds her prince.

The six-hour limited series, produced by Berlin’s Pyjama Pictures with Sweden’s Unlimited Stories, follows the real-life romance between Silvia Sommerlath, a German-Brazilian interpreter working at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and Sweden’s Crown Prince Carl Gustaf, the games’ guest of honor. Their first meet cut is cut short by a terrorist attack — the Black September attacks on the Israeli team. Silvia holds her own under pressure, and the prince is smitten. But Silvia is not quite ready to trade her career for a tiara.

“Silvia is not a woman who wants to become queen,” series director Miguel Alexandre tells The Hollywood Reporter. “She was a very independent woman, following a great career, and was not at all impressed by all this royal baggage. But she falls in love with a man who brings this baggage with him.”

“She was such a powerhouse herself already at such a young age, very independent,” says German actress Alicia von Rittberg, star of Charité and Becoming Elizabeth, who plays Silvia. “It was a struggle for her, to fit in with the royal world, to make that work.”

Starting from 1970s Munich, the series carries through to the couple’s 1976 wedding, an event made world famous for its soundtrack. Swedish supergroup ABBA composed their hit “Dancing Queen” as a wedding gift for Queen Silvia, and performed the song live at a televised gala on June 18, 1976, the night before the royal wedding.

Beta Film, which is selling Queen Silvia worldwide, leaned into the ABBA connection at Mipcom, hiring German-US singer Caro Kelley to perform a live version of “Dancing Queen” both at the company’s Beta Brunch sales event, at at the series’ world premiere gala.

Swedish actor Edvin Endre (Vikings, Fortitude, Eddie the Eagle), who plays Carl Gustaf in the series, says Queen Silvia‘s “more realistic, more grounded” take on the monarchy, could be a revelation for Swedes as well, who often view their King Gustaf in a less-than-favorable light.

“When [the King] is portrayed, it’s usually as the butt of the joke,” says Endre. “He’s presented as being silly, goofy, not all that smart. I don’t think that’s the truth at all. I think he takes his job very seriously. So for this role, I wanted to go in the opposite direction.”

Endre points to the king’s dyslexia as the root of the teasing. “Whenever he would give speeches from a very young age, he would stumble and he would struggle, and this is kind of the reason why people don’t take him seriously,” he says. “People were so brutal to him in the press.” The show’s approach, he says, is “a lot of sympathy and… making him as human as possible.”

Endre describes the story of the two 20-somethings as being as much “a coming-of-age story” as a royal romance. “At the end of the day, they’re two young people sitting alone in a palace, trying to figure out each other and like if they can go on this journey together…being scared and being in love and all that stuff.” Adds Von Rittberg: “and both of them are trying to break free from the expectations of their parents.”

Making a drama about a living king and queen is a risky business, as the show’s producers are well aware. Alexandre says Unlimited kept the Swedish court informed at every stage in the production, but that the royal family did not ask to participate. When asked about the show, the king said publicly that making a series about them while they are still alive was “a horrible idea.”

But Endre is quick to allay fears that Queen Silvia is a hatchet job. “Everyone involved in this has really approached this project with a lot of like integrity and love and respect,” he says. He calls the real couple “the most progressive royals in the world,” who “really changed the monarchy in Sweden, made it more relevant and more approachable.”

The royal family, however, will not be in attendance for Queen Silvia‘s Mipcom premiere. The producers say the court was informed of the screening and replied with a curt “thanks and good luck.” A screener was also offered. No word yet on whether anyone is clearing a spot on the royal couch.