The UK-set crime drama recently returned for its second season, and it renewed for season three. ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection It appears as though someone jumped the gun. Meghan Markle never had a role in Guy Ritchie‘s series “The Gentlemen” — but rather misinterpreted a casual conversation with a casting director as an offer to be on the show, Page Six Hollywood has learned. The lost in translation moment became an international incident worthy of a royal “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode.
The trouble all began on Aug. 21, when Deadline published an “exclusive” report that Markle was in “preliminary conversations to join Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series ‘The Gentlemen’ for Season 3.”
For most of the day, that language stood, according to seven subsequent captures on the Wayback Machine. But then, the wording was tweaked to “in talks to join Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series ‘The Gentlemen’ for Season 3.”
Preliminary conversations vs. in talks is an important distinction. In trade lingo, conversations are usually just that, while talks usually mean an offer has been made. Negotiations mean the agent has come back with a counteroffer. And “signed on” means the deal has closed.
Why Deadline strengthened its verbiage remains a mystery. Perhaps it was because former New Yorker editor Tina Brown was teeing up her own item on Substack that posted the following day. Brown wrote: “The casting … has been withdrawn. The backlash in the UK was so intense, it became untenable to go forward.”
Sources tell Page Six Hollywood that the Duchess of Sussex never actually had an offer and had just one conversation with the series casting director. “She took it as an offer. And it wasn’t,” says one insider. “And [she and Prince Harry] thought it would be helpful in the moment for there to be a reason for their move.”
Another source concurs that there was never a formal offer but counters that the interest in Markle joining the cast was initiated by Ritchie himself. WME, which reps both Markle and Ritchie, did not respond to a request for comment.
The aforementioned “moment” was when Markle and Harry’s team confirmed on Aug. 19 that they were moving to the UK after an inglorious six-year run Stateside. And before the ink was dry on their boarding passes, Aussie digital outlet news.com.au reported that Markle was “offered a role in an upcoming project based in the UK.” Deadline then sleuthed out what the project was and went with its mutating scoop.
As for why we are bothering to dissect a minor TV casting gig like it’s the Zapruder film, the combination of the news.com.au leak, the Deadline scoop and the Brown debunk spawned a multi-day news reaping that was picked up and parsed by everyone from the BBC to The Hollywood Reporter.
On Tuesday, Markle’s acting career became very relevant when King Charles basically said their services as royals will not be needed. “Their styles as His and Her Royal Highness remain in abeyance and are not used. The charitable work of the duke and duchess is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity. In short, their position is akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests,” the king wrote in a letter. Even more humiliating, the letter was only sent to Meghan and Harry about an hour before it was released to the media. Ouch!
Given that the royal (civilian?) couple was dealt a major PR blow with Charles’ letter, talk in town returned to what exactly they can do next.
The $25 million Spotify deal has long since evaporated. Their Archewell Prods. Netflix deal is on life support. Their Sundance doc “Cookie Queens” has earned just $625,459 at the box office since its Aug. 7 launch in theaters. And stunt casting gigs in London aren’t exactly plentiful.
One source who has worked with the couple calls the entire Megxit arc a bungled effort to control the narrative. “They can’t help themselves.”
