Before she was engaged to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle was Rachel Zane on Suits. But before that she was a regular actress trying to make it in Hollywood, and according to The Daily Mail, she wrote a tell-all blog about it called “The Working Actress.” With the subtitle ‘Welcome to the Hustle,’ Markle anonymously and intimately detailed her life as an actress who was working steadily in Hollywood, but wasn’t really famous, at least when she started. She was making ends meet and didn’t have to wait tables, but she did have to hold a briefcase on Deal or No Deal, so it’s kind of a trade-off.
When she attended one audition, she found herself being ticked off ‘like a f****** three-year-old’ for failing to bring a headshot photograph and CV with her, as is customary.
‘I find myself in this moment losing every ounce of patience. Not just because [the casting agent] is being ridiculously condescending . . . but because she gets away with talking to an actress that way. It blows my mind.
‘Perhaps she assumes I’m a non-union actress and this is my 4th audition ever . . . it drives me crazy.’
Now, Markle has since deleted the blog and scrubbed it from the internet. I couldn’t find hide a hair of the site, archive.org didn’t even have a record of it. But I did find an interview she gave to the website Space Gypsies while she was still writing the blog, opening up about filming awkward sex scenes and how being a regular changed things.
As a series regular you have a lot more leeway to say what’s bothering you; to talk it through with the producers, and to share how incredibly awkward it is when the guy playing your boyfriend is grinding a little too hard into you during your love scene. (Oh yes, and with a big old chubby…that’s not awkward at allllllll
Meghan’s only been a regular on one show and only one guy played her boyfriend, so, you know, watch your boner, Patrick J. Adams, she’s royalty now.
She also told the Space Gypsies about the tribulations of not having made it yet.
Oh Jesus…it’s not on set that that happens. It can, of course. But it’s even worse when you get home, and it airs and all of your scenes are cut. This is after weeks or months of anticipating it, and tivo’ing it, and having friends and family look forward to seeing it — all for a drumroll to………nothing. It’s mortifying. It’s those kind of discoveries that are humbling as they are mind numbing, and have sent me into a tailspin of sobbing in bed with a bottle of wine and a box of cookies. But it’s part of the game.
I wish I could find a copy of the website somewhere on the internet, because it seems interesting from the things the associated Twitter account sent out.
Accidentally dropped the f bomb in my audition yesterday for McG. Yeah…a classic moment. www.theworkingactress.blogspot.com
— The Working Actress (@workingactress) February 6, 2010
Markle was also a fan of Gwenyth Paltrow’s website Goop, so she should get on well with her new father-in-law who believes in all sorts of utter bollocks like homeopathy.
loving London. agenda for tomorrow: see some shops, and eat and some of Paltrow's goop recommendations…brilliant!
— The Working Actress (@workingactress) March 16, 2010
What do you get when you cross a working actress, 50 Cent and three bodyguards? http://post.ly/18uql
— The Working Actress (@workingactress) November 1, 2010
I so want to read that story. There are very few things I want more than to read that blog post.
Come read about the girl with the magical boobs! I'm serious: http://theworkingactress.com/2011/02/24/the-girl-with-the-magical-boobs/
— The Working Actress (@workingactress) February 24, 2011
Okay, reading that blog post is one of the things I want more. Of course, it’s not very princess-like to have that sort of blog out there. But hopefully someone has a copy of it somewhere we’ll be able to read.