When filming began in September 2016, Judi Dench was one month older than Queen Victoria was when she died.
The third time Judi Dench has played the queen of England: she also portrayed Queen Victoria in La dame de Windsor (1997) (many reviews to refer to this film as an unofficial sequel), and played Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Abdul tells Queen Victoria that he is a Hafiz of Quran, meaning he has memorized all 114 chapters of the Quran, in Arabic.
Queen Victoria's advisers threaten to have her declared insane. She was a year old when her grandfather, George III, died, but she knew he had been declared insane in 1811, and his son, her uncle, had ruled as Prince Regent from 1811 to 1820. She knew that it was possible for her advisers to carry out their threat.
On November 18, 2016, Bajrang Dal members staged a protest on this movie's sets against the installation of a statue of Queen Victoria in Mehtab Bagh, Agra, India. The filmmakers immediately draped the statue and left the city. Principal photography was postponed until April 2017, when the rest of the necessary Agra footage was re-created in London.