Radical idea - impossible to pull off in an edit, but I thought I’d share.
So Padme and Queen Amidala are seperate characters. Padme is her double for security reasons - just a fairly similar looking handmaid, who dreams of leaving the planet and wishes she was an important person/hero herself, as oppose to living in the shadow of the queen.
The bad guys invade, and the Queen is killed in an accident. Padme then assumes the identity of the Queen (probably at her request). She escapes with some bodyguards/jedi etc, returns later on, saves the day. At some critical point she probably reveals that she isn’t the queen, or gets discovered, but rallies her people from her own confidence as oppose to the image of the queen.
It would sort of map well to Luke’s journey in ANH.