Queen's sky-jump double: 'I think they liked my legs'

TODAY

Gary Connery (no relation to Sean) is also no stranger to jumps; he's the first skydiver in history to land safely without a parachute.

There's a new Bond girl on the block, and she just happens to be the reigning Queen of England.

For many spectators around the world, it was the queen who stole the show during the opening ceremony when she "jumped" from a plane with current James Bond. 

Only, it wasn’t actually Queen Elizabeth making the leap. It was male stunt double Gary Connery, dressed in a sparkly pink dress and white wig ("Bond" actor Daniel Craig had a stand-in, too).

While Connery went through several rehearsals, the opening ceremony was the first time he wore his costume. “I mean I’ve worn my own dresses out loads of times,” he joked with TODAY’s Matt Lauer on Monday. “But in terms of the jump it was the first time.”

Connery test-jumped over an airfield and then over the Olympic Stadium. In true 007 style, the rehearsals were done steathily and under a shroud of darkness. "We probably did, I think, four rehearsals over the stadium, but kind of at the dead of night so nobody saw what we were up to,” he said.

Connery poses in the plane with Daniel Craig's double, pre-jump.

It's no wonder James Bond jumped with the queen; he is charged with protecting her in his role at MI6, the British intelligence agency. In a famous scene from the 1977 film "The Spy Who Loved Me," one girl says desperately to Bond, "But James, I need you!" As he walks out the door with a parachute and goggles he says, "So does England."

“London is the center of everything relating to Bond," author and espionage expert Nigel West told TODAY. "He is the personification of the central British character.”

Lauer asked Connery why opening ceremony director Danny Boyle and his team didn't get a female skydiver to do the risky stunt.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Connery, mid-air during Friday's opening ceremony stunt.

“Good question. I think they liked my legs,” Connery, who is not related to "Bond" actor Sean, said. “I’ve got Queen-style legs.”

Connery is no stranger to big jumps. Not only does he make a career out of being a stunt double, he also leaped into the history books earlier this year when he became the first skydiver to land safely without using a parachute. Instead, he told Lauer, he wore a wingsuit and jumped "like a flying squirrel" from a helicopter at 2,400 feet, landing on a runway made of nearly 19,000 cardboard boxes.

Fans who can't get enough of the now-renowned jumper can look forward to next year, when he lands in Vegas on the 4th of July. No word yet on whether he'll be in his flying squirrel suit or a sparkly pink dress. 

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