Meghan Markle Says 1 Typical Scene in Princess Movies Would’ve Been ‘Really Helpful’ in Preparing for Royal Life
TL;DR:
- Meghan Markle said movies about an American woman who becomes a princess “would’ve been really helpful” before starting royal life.
- Specifically, scenes where a veteran royal outlines expectations.
- Meghan Markle previously said she received “no guidance” on “how to be royal.”
The Prince & Me and The Princess Diaries are just a few of the movies Meghan Markle probably would’ve watched before her royal life got underway. In an August 2022 interview, she remarked certain scenes from similar movies “would’ve been a very key tutorial.”
Meghan Markle didn’t know very much about the British royal family before marrying Prince Harry
Unlike others who married into the royal family, Meghan didn’t grow up in the U.K. with at least a basic understanding of the royal family. Admittedly, the Duchess of Sussex didn’t know much about the royal family before marrying Prince Harry in 2018.
Meghan, now 41, said as much during her and the Duke of Sussex’s March 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview.
“I will say I went into it naively because I didn’t grow up knowing much about the royal family,” Meghan told Winfrey. “It wasn’t something that was part of the conversation at home. It wasn’t something that we followed.”
“I didn’t fully understand what the job was,” she added, referring to life as a full-time working royal.
Meghan also said she didn’t look Harry up online. “I just didn’t feel a need to because everything that I needed to know, he was sharing with me. Right? Or everything we thought I needed to know, he was telling me,” she explained.
Meghan Markle remarked movies like ‘The Prince & Me’ would’ve been a ‘very key tutorial’
In an August 2022 cover interview for New York Magazine’s The Cut, Meghan opened up about royal life and what her life has been like since stepping back as a working royal.
Between reflecting on “upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy” and mentions of her Spotify podcast Archetypes, Meghan shared that certain movies, or rather scenes, probably would’ve helped her navigate things.
“Yeah. That would’ve been really helpful,” she told The Cut’s Allison P. Davis after the writer cited The Prince & Me as a movie with a “pivotal scene” where, as Davis wrote, the woman “thinks she’s doing the job correctly, just by being herself, but then some older royal gives her a speech about duty and decorum.”
“That would’ve been a very key tutorial to have had in advance of all this,” Meghan, who is reported not to have seen the 2004 movie starring Julia Stiles, said.
”I was an actress,” she later added. “My entire job was ‘Tell me where to stand, tell me what to say, tell me how to say it. Tell me what to wear, and I’ll do it.’ And I’ll show up early, and I’ll probably bake something for the crew.”
Meghan Markle previously said didn’t take a class on ‘how to be royal’
The Duchess of Sussex’s experience of marrying into the royal family wasn’t like the movies, she told Oprah in 2021. “There was no guidance,” she said.
No one gave Meghan a crash course on royal life or etiquette like Julie Andrews did with Anne Hathaway’s character in The Princess Diaries. Nor was she handed a guide on the royal family or eased into royal life over time.
“There were certain things that you couldn’t do, but you know, unlike what you see in the movies, there’s no class on how to speak, how to cross your legs, how to be royal,” Meghan told Oprah. “There’s none of that training that might exist for other members.”
Sarah Ferguson taught her how to curtsy outside the Royal Lodge ahead of Queen Elizabeth II’s arrival. Meghan called it the “first moment that the penny really dropped.”
