After eight years away from acting, Meghan Markle is making her Hollywood comeback with a small role in Close Personal Friends, an Amazon MGM comedy about two couples—one famous, one civilian—costarring Lily Collins and Brie Larson. According to reports, the Duchess of Sussex will play herself in the film, which also stars Jack Quaid and Henry Golding. And she has already been spotted on set. “She was joking that she felt a bit rusty, but it was obvious that she had rehearsed and that it was a big deal for her to be back,” a source told People on Monday of Meghan’s return.
Directed by Jason Orley, according The Hollywood Reporter, Close Personal Friends tells the tale of two lovers who meet a celebrity couple on a trip to Santa Barbara, California—which, coincidentally, is not far from the Montecito compound where Meghan has been living with her husband, Prince Harry, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet, since stepping back from royal duties in 2020. Vanity Fair has reached out to Meghan’s representative for comment.
Once upon a time, before Meghan married Harry in 2018, she famously played lawyer Rachel Zane on the Canadian series Suits, which had a sudden resurgence on streaming during summer 2023. Her final episode aired on April 25, 2018, with her character walking down the aisle just three weeks before Meghan did herself, becoming a Duchess and effectively halting her acting career. “I don’t see it as giving anything up, I just see it as a change,” Meghan said during her official engagement interview alongside Prince Harry in 2017. “I’ve been working on my show for seven years. So we’re very, very fortunate to be able to have that sort of longevity on a series, and for me, once we hit the 100-episode marker, I thought, You know what, I have ticked this box.”
Now, after two seasons headlining her own lifestyle talk series, With Love, Meghan, Meghan is returning to scripted film and TV. But unlike other performers who have made buzzy exits from acting, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz, less is known about Meghan’s past oeuvre. She was so under the radar pre–Prince Harry that she couldn’t even get booked on Bravo’s freewheeling late-night series, Watch What Happens Live, Meghan recounted on a 2022 episode of her now-shuttered podcast, Archetypes. Host Andy Cohen jokingly called it “the biggest blunder in the 13 years of the show.”
Ahead, all the TV and movies to revisit before her return to the big screen.
Deal or No Deal
