These days, it’s almost impossible for anyone to know the “real” Meghan Markle. After all, she rose to fame as an actor who was encouraged to hide any dirty little secrets. She then married into the secretive Royal Family, and outside of the occasional prepared appearances, most of what we know about Meghan Markle comes from tabloid headlines.
How, then, can anyone learn what Meghan is really like? Simple: by asking her former costars! You won’t believe what some of the biggest names in Hollywood said about this controversial royal. Keep reading to discover every secret for yourself!
Robert Pattinson praised her performance
Robert Pattinson is hotter in Hollywood than ever after starring in the critically acclaimed superhero film The Batman. However, as E! News reports, he joked in 2017 that his 2010 movie Remember Me was his “claim to fame.” And while she only shared the screen with him for one scene, Meghan Markle was in that film as well.
He didn’t say much, but the man who would be Batman dished a bit about Meghan when he was asked to comment on her engagement to Prince Harry. “She seems great,” he said, and he seemed very excited to have previously worked with someone about to join the Royal Family.
Interestingly, their lives very nearly intersected again in a very unexpected way. Ok! reports that Robert Pattinson was once considered to play Prince Harry in an adaption of the prince’s book Spare. If this happens, Pattinson will go from being a brief acquaintance to becoming Meghan’s onscreen husband!
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Nathan Fillion forgot about their time together
Nathan Fillion is one of the most affable stars in the business. While sci-fi nerds will always remember him for the beloved science fiction show Firefly, he won over many more fans by starring in the popular TV show Castle for 8 seasons. That show had plenty of guest stars, and on one occasion, Meghan Markle appeared on the show.
On paper, her appearance was very memorable: Meghan’s character dressed like Sleeping Beauty and tried to transform her victims into fairytale characters with crazy costumes. But to Fillion, the performance was a little less than memorable. In an interview with ET, he confided that “I forgot that she was the murderer, and I’m shocked.”
That may sound like a dig, but keep in mind Castle ran for a whopping 173 episodes. It’s no surprise that even the main stars sometimes forget the finer details of what happened in any given episode!
Jason Sudeikis knew she would go places
While Meghan Markle was mostly known as a television actor before marrying royalty, that doesn’t mean she never appeared in any films. For example, she has a very brief role in the 2011 movie Horrible Bosses in which she interacts with Hollywood funnyman Jason Sudeikis. In their scene, she plays a FedEx driver who is distractingly pretty (one might say this comes naturally to Meghan), and Sudeikis’ character makes a cringe-worthy attempt to hit on her, saying she is too pretty to work for FedEx and assuming he is being pranked.
However, the praise Sudeikis has for Meghan is certainly no prank. In a 2018 interview with ET, he joked about seeing her royal potential as soon as they shot that scene. “She was regal in that moment, and it seemed like she’s only gotten better at it,” he said, before adding his more earnest thoughts about his former costar: “She was very sweet.”
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Howie Mandel forgot about Meghan and later defended her
Of all the roles Meghan Markle had as an actor, many consider her time on Deal Or No Deal to be the most demeaning. She played one of the many beautiful women who held up the briefcases which contestants had to choose from as they played. And while there is nothing inherently demeaning about the gig, it is a tad shocking to look back and see that a future member of the Royal Family was once nothing more than eye candy on a second-rate game show.
The show was hosted by Howie Mandel, and in a 2022 appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the show host confessed that “I don’t remember her to this day.” Some tabloids ran with this and attacked Meghan for just being that unremarkable and unmemorable, which caused Mandel to later jump to her defense regarding her comments that she didn’t like how the show made her feel. In an interview with Us Weekly, Mandel said “I don’t think Meghan is complaining. I think Meghan just said she wanted to do more” and admitted that he didn’t really love how the show made him feel, either.
Simon Rex chose to go hungry rather than betray Meghan
By now, you’ve probably noticed that many of Meghan’s former costars stick with saying quick and polite things about her. This is likely because they don’t want to run afoul of the Royal Family or Meghan herself, both of whom are known to be quite litigious. However, it was one of Meghan’s least famous costars that took the biggest step to not only support her but to protect her as well.
The actor in question is Simon Rex, and he and Meghan made super-brief appearances on the old sitcom Cuts. They starred together way back in 2005, and last year, Rex made a surprising confession to The Guardian: multiple publications had reached out to Rex in order to have him lie and claim he had a secret love affair with Meghan. One publication offered him $70,000 to lie, but he turned them down despite his major financial struggles. “I was broke as f***! But I’ll be on food stamps before I do that.”
He even went so far as to tell Meghan what these publications were trying to do. For his honesty, Meghan wrote him a beautiful letter thanking him, and she summed her thoughts up succinctly: “It’s nice to know there are still good people.” In turn, Rex framed the letter and gave it a place of honor in his home.
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Getting dissed by her onscreen father, Wendell Pierce
While Meghan was close with many of her fellow Suits actors, she seemed to have a particularly close onscreen bond with Wendell Pierce. In the show, he played her father, and that bond continued when the cameras weren’t rolling. On a talk show, Harry, Pierce confessed that he told Meghan “I know your life is going to change, but always know, no matter where you are, I will always be your loving fake father.”
That’s a very sweet sentiment, but it didn’t take long for Meghan to anger her onscreen dad. After she and Harry dropped their bombshell Oprah interview, Pierce was quite angry. In a 2021 interview with LBC, he expressed anger that they would pull this stunt amid the COVID-19 global pandemic. “In the midst of so much death, I think it is insignificant,” he fumed.
He later had to take back some of what he said because he saw how the Daily Mail and other tabloids were using his words to attack Meghan. However, back in 2021, he really did seem genuinely upset at both the timing of the interview and how these two were wasting time airing their dirty royal laundry.