In January 2020 Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they were stepping away from the royal family to become “financially independent”. This event also included them splitting their time between living in the UK and in the USA. Since then, the royals have appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss their decisions, as well as made appearances on James Corden’s show. A new film from the Lifetime network explores this monumental event in intimate detail, with Harry and Meghan being played by Jordan Dean and Sydney Morton respectively – but, just like the real-life events, it wasn’t an easy task to portray.
Meghan actor Sydney recently confessed: “For me, I would say it was very emotional.
“I know that I had not spent that much time really thinking and internalising their experience. I mean, again, it’s always been such news. It’s been headlines and kind of reduced to these talking points, so it was really surprising to feel the weight of it all, the emotional weight of it.” (Via Hollywood Life)
In the past, Prince Harry has been very candid about living within the royal family and how it affected him.
Speaking on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Prince Harry said: “We all know what the British press can be like. It was destroying my mental health. It was toxic.”
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Sydney continued: “[Playing Meghan] definitely gave me a new perspective and a perspective that, I think, most people don’t have just because you’re not taking the time to really sit there and internalise and think how would that feel to lose your mother the way that Harry did, to be an American, to be a woman of colour marrying into the royal family under all that scrutiny.
“It’s something that most of us can’t fathom and don’t take the time to try. So that was a really surprisingly emotional thing to take on.”
Jordan, who plays the 36-year-old Prince Harry in the film, placed a lot of the weight of his own performance on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Princess Diana died on August 31, 1997 after sustaining injuries from a car crash in Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris.
Jordan said: “I felt this similar weight – if you will – when playing somebody who’s lived that life and had pretty much an unthinkable tragedy happen to him at a very young age and still dealing with the ripple effects from that as a man.
“As an actor, there’s a lot to mind from that. There’s a lot of notes on the piano, if you will, to play and I think these are people with enormous depths. And again, exploring that emotional depth for me was what was exciting, especially given that Harry, while we were filming, was speaking openly about his emotional journey.”
Earlier this year Prince Harry produced a mental health documentary in association with Apple TV Plus.
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The docuseries, titled The Me You Can’t See, features testimonies from Lady Gaga, Glenn Close, Prince Harry himself, and many other A-listers talking about their mental health.
Mental health is a powerful topic, and something the royal couple have discussed openly in the past.
During their interview with Oprah, Meghan revealed she had “contemplated suicide” when she felt lonely at Buckingham Palace.
She told Oprah: “I left the house twice in four months … I couldn’t feel lonelier.”
Meghan later went on: “I didn’t want to be alive anymore … It was a clear and real and frightening constant thought.”
Later in the interview, Prince Harry spoke about his brother, Prince William, and his father, the now late Prince Philip.
He said: “My father and my brother are trapped. They don’t get to leave and I have compassion for that.”
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