Meghan Markle has spoken about her years of living as a struggling actor in a “little house” with a “small closet” before landing her role in the hit legal drama Suits in 2011.
The Duchess of Sussex played the talented paralegal Rachel Zane, appearing in the nine-season show right from the beginning. Markle left the series early after she became engaged to Prince Harry in 2017.
On Tuesday (20 May), during the latest episode of her Confessions of a Female Founder podcast, Markle spoke to Cassandra Thurswell, the founder of hair and beauty brand Kitsch, about how they met when she was first auditioning for acting roles.
Markle’s close friend Heather recommended Thurswell, her cousin, to help style the aspiring performer.
“You come into my little house that I was renting and I remember my closet, do you remember? That closet door was within the bathroom?” the Suits star asked Thurswell, who replied: “Meghan, we’ll call it a bungalow, we’ll be chic.”
Laughing at the suggestion, Markle continued: “It was a bungalow and you had to walk through my bedroom, past my bed, past the shower and the sink, which were right there and the toilet and then right across from that was the door that opened into my very small closet.”
She explained: “This was pre-Suits for me. This was really early days when I was auditioning and I just remember literally going through things thinking, there’s a couple of [wardrobe] staples that you need.”
Days later, Thurswell rang Markle to tell her she’d found a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes she thought she should buy. “You called me and said, ‘I just found the best pair of black patent leather Louboutin wedge flats. They’re $200 (£149),’” she reminisced.
“I remember going, ‘that’s as much as I pay – I cannot. And you go, ‘I promise you, you are going to wear [them].’”
Markle added: “Do you know what’s so funny? Of course I wore those shoes until the red wore out. I wore those shoes on my final audition for Suits when I booked the part.”
Suits is set in a New York City law firm and stars Old School actor Patrick J Adams as Mike Ross, who uses his photographic memory to talk his way into a job as a lawyer despite having no law degree.
When the series landed on Netflix in summer 2023, it racked up over 57 billion minutes of streaming time, breaking records for the most-watched acquired title.
“I had no idea that this late August morning of 2011 would change my life,” Markle previously said of the day she was cast in the programme. “Suits stole my heart. It’s the Goldilocks of my acting career – where finally I was just right.”
