Meghan: A Hollywood Princess(28)
Before her audition Meghan ran into an H&M store, picked out a simple black dress for $35 and raced back to the studio. She hadn’t even time to try it on for size. The producers of the then titled A Legal Mind asked her to change into the new garment before taking the screen test. It was the best $35 she had ever spent. As the show’s creator, Aaron Korsh, told writer Sam Kashner: “We all looked at each other after the Meghan Markle screen test like, ‘Wow this is the one.’ I think it’s because Meghan has the ability to be smart and sharp without losing her sweetness.”
With the casting of Meghan Markle, the character of Rachel Zane was made flesh. Originally the brainy and beautiful paralegal was named Rachel Lane, but the clearance department felt the name was too similar to that of a real person. So they chose the surname of the show’s casting director, Bonnie Zane, an insiders’ compliment to the storied Hollywood professional for her work on the show.
It was not as if Meghan was a shoo-in for the role. Now thirty, on paper she was too old to play a young paralegal, and the multiracial Gina Torres had already put a tick in the box labeled “ethnic diversity.”
Her main rival was a younger, more experienced Canadian actor, blond, blue-eyed Kim Shaw. By now Meghan had learned to manage her expectations and not take rejection too personally. She was often too light, too dark, too skinny, too something or other for so many roles.
Meghan didn’t feel great about her audition and called her agent, Nick Collins at the Gersh Agency, from her car. She told him that she could not get her head around the lines. It was a mouthful, the worst audition of her life. “I don’t think I did a good job in that room, and I need to get back in there,” she wailed. “I really want this part.” Her agent had heard this before from so many of his clients, and his answer was always the same: “There’s nothing I can do. Just focus on your next audition.” Once again, she felt that moment of Why am I subjecting myself to this torture? She had a top degree, a sparkling résumé, great connections; she didn’t have to put herself through the ringer every day. It was kind of inevitable, though, given her background. As she once said: “If you grow up in a coal mining town, you will probably become a coal miner. I grew up in the industry, and was always on set because of my dad, so it seems natural for me to be an actress.”
In spite of her considerable misgivings, she tried to stay optimistic, going to yoga classes and meditating to stay grounded. All the while she headed out to other auditions, though none of them inspired her as much as A Legal Mind. In her heart, she felt this role would be perfect for her. It was kismet—her given first name was Rachel, just like the part she longed to play.
While Meghan felt she had blown the audition, unbeknownst to her, behind the scenes the executives were busy putting together her test deal and drawing up the contract for the pilot if the network approved. As she recalls: “We had no idea that they loved my read. They loved my take on Rachel and they were putting together a test deal for me. It was a really good lesson in perspective. I think we are always going to be our own worst critics.”
The head honchos at USA Network had chosen Markle over Shaw, formally casting her on August 24, 2010. As then USA Network copresident Jeff Wachtel explained: “Shaw was a little more traditional blond girl next door. The decision was a tough one because they were both really good. Meghan had a certain type of sparkle and was a little more urbane, a little more worldly.”
The deciding factor was how they wanted the relationship between Rachel and Mike to play out. As Wachtel recalled: “One of the things that we needed at the beginning with Suits was Patrick’s character comes in as the hottest thing in town: he’s brilliant, has a photographic memory and fakes his way into being a lawyer and then he comes up against this girl who turns out to be the love of his life. We needed somebody who had a real authority to shut him down and still be the coolest thing around. And they had it right away. It was a lot of fun.”
Meghan was still taking other auditions when her cell phone rang with a call from her agent, telling her she had been cast in the Suits series pilot and would begin filming in autumn in New York. She was overjoyed but also wary. After all, she had gone down this road before, especially with The Apostles, which, at the time, she felt confident was going to be her big break. After eight years going from audition to audition, had she finally caught a break? She could dream. If the pilot was a success, Suits could turn into a series, and then who knows. Meghan’s casting garnered a short article in the Hollywood Reporter, noting her uncredited role in the 2010 comedy Get Him to the Greek.
When she began with a standard table read of the script, it was obvious that Meghan and Patrick generated chemistry, this elusive quality the showbiz equivalent of lightning in a bottle. It was vital that they had a spark between them as the ups and downs of their love story would be a narrative arc throughout the series—if the show was picked up by the network, that is.
In the fall of 2010 Meghan flew to New York to shoot the ninety-minute series pilot. Since the elation of winning the part, reality had set in. She had already shot five pilots, including one for ABC with her current costar, Patrick J. Adams, and none of them had got any further. Maybe he was her unlucky charmer. As she later observed: “A pilot is like your baby, then you wait and wait to see if it gets picked up and it’s a hard thing to let go of. The one I had the most attachment to was one called The Apostles, which was my very first pilot. It’s probably revisionist history but I look back on it now and think: “That would have been amazing. But who knows?”