These days, Meghan Markle is living the glam life in Montecito with her husband, Prince Harry, and their two children. She’s keeping busy with her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, and promoting her lifestyle brand, As Ever, including launching a new line of wines. 

But before she transformed herself into a millennial Martha Stewart, the future Duchess of Sussex was a working actor. While she’s best known for playing Rachel Zane on Suits, she also starred in two movies for Hallmark Channel, including one that takes place on the 4th of July. 

Meghan Markle stars in ‘When Sparks Fly’

In When Sparks Fly, which premiered in 2014, Markle plays a big-city journalist named Amy whose editor sends her back to her small hometown to write an article about her parents’ fireworks business. Her visit home soon gets derailed by her friend, Sammie (Kristina Pesic), who needs Amy’s help to pull off her Independence Day wedding. Unfortunately, the groom just happens to be Amy’s ex-boyfriend, Hank (Christopher Jacot). Things get complicated when Amy’s feelings for Hank resurface amid the wedding planning chaos.  

In an interview with TV Goodness, the royal-to-be opened up about what drew her to When Sparks Fly. 

“I wanted to do a romantic comedy. When the script came in, it was exactly the kind of project I wanted to be part of,” she said. “It was light and easy and it was a departure from Rachel [on Suits], who is so refined and polished.” 

Her Hallmark character was much closer to her true self, Markle added.

“Amy Peterson is very opposite and closer to my true personality. It was fun to eat ribs and get barbecue sauce all over my face and run around in jeans all day,” she said. 

Markle even raided her own wardrobe for the movie. She brought her Converse sneakers with her to Vancouver and wore them in the film.  

“I told them I thought it was really, really important as a character choice, and also to preserve my feet, that Amy wear these shoes,” she said.

The future duchess didn’t want to play a ‘malicious’ character  

Markle also said that she wanted to make sure the movie didn’t suggest her character was deliberately breaking up her best friend’s relationship. 

 “In the development of the script, [we see that] Sammie is marrying Hank for the wrong reasons and she knows it, too. I’m not interested in playing characters that are just malicious,” she said. “Finding the flaws in what we all do as human beings, and forgiveness, and the layers of that, keep it interesting. Amy has a heart and that’s what I was drawn to. She doesn’t want to hurt her friend, but she wants to follow her heart when she realizes she still loves this man. It was cool to be able to play with all that.”

When Sparks Fly is streaming on Hallmark+, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, and Hoopla. It also airs on Hallmark Channel on Friday, July 4, at 6 p.m. ET/PT.

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