So, what happened here?
On Friday, Meghan Markle, who recently decided to exit the U.S. with her husband, Prince Harry, was reportedly cast in Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen,” her first acting role in eons—or since 2017’s “Suits.”
This felt like the kind of story you should always take with a grain of salt—too good to be true, too implausible to be reality. Why would Ritchie want to install such a burden to his popular Netflix series?
Not more than 24 hours later, Ritchie’s role offer to Markle has now reportedly, supposedly, been withdrawn. The story goes that Ritchie doesn’t want Markle in the show anymore. The reporting: “After intense backlash in the U.K. it became untenable to go forward.”
Whether the narrative being fed to the trades is accurate or not, this does not bode well for Markle’s aspiration of an acting comeback. Ritchie, who created the Netflix series, which is adapted from his 2019 film of the same name, had, apparently, given her a lifeline, meeting Markle via “mutual friends” .. and just like that, she’s gone?
Markle stepped away from the profession in 2017 when she got engaged to Prince Harry. The couple recently revealed plans to move back to the U.K., with the acting role in “The Gentlemen” reportedly being a “significant factor” in the decision. Narrative engineering?
One must ask, did this “role” ever exist in the first place? Markle’s role was written for “The Gentlemen” Season 3, but it had not even been greenlit by Netflix —hell, the second season has still not premiered yet. Was the story planted to generate publicity and make Meghan appear in demand? Not that far fetched to think so ..
What if this was a fake story, followed by fake backlash to the fake story? I wouldn’t put anything past Meghan and Harry.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.