Meghan Markle has featured in many movies and TV series.
Pop quiz: "Once is random, twice is fate" is the tagline of which Meghan Markle movie? No peeking!
Give up? It's 2013's Random Encounters, co-starring Sean Young.
Meghan had quite a busy life as a thespian before she was a duchess. She co-starred in about 30 movies and TV shows.
Here's a crash course in Meghan's big and small screen appearances — just in case you missed a few.
Don't blink! That's Meghan in the background in the pink scrubs on the classic American soap opera General Hospital in 2002. For her small-screen debut, the then 20-year-old duchess-to-be played Jill, the nurse, in two episodes. Her role was what is called an "under five" in the biz, meaning she had under five lines of dialogue (in a nutshell: none). She didn't exactly steal the show — but we all have to start somewhere. Meghan used to visit her dad Thomas on the GH set because he worked on the show as one of the main lighting directors. Now, we know what you're thinking — but it is said she had to audition for the role of Jill just like everyone else.
Famed soap opera director Mary Madeirasn directed Meghan in GH on her first acting gig.
"Meghan appeared in a few episodes as a nurse," she told news.com.au. "One of them was an episode I was directing and it was a very important show, a culmination of a mystery storyline that ended with a powerful music montage and the eventual murder of a patient in the hospital. Meghan played the nurse who was overseeing the patient. She was so good. Even though she had no lines in my episode, she had plenty of what we refer to as 'business' in the scene. She was prepared, took direction and notes beautifully and was such a pleasure to work with. My memory of her was that she was a natural at acting and would go far and I was right. She did. Her acting career took off."
Meghan has weird role this TV sci-fi legal drama. She plays Natasha, a partygoer, in an episode called "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Lose". She's fawning over a man at an office launch party for a virtual reality project and suddenly says, "Here's to Tom Montero, who had the vision to install this amazing virtual assistant." We wonder how many times she had to practise that. It was pretty convincing.
Meghan plays Cori on an episode of this American comedy series about the goings-on in a hair salon and day spa, which only lasted two seasons. The episode, which aired the first season, is called "My Boyfriend's Back".
She was cast, simply, as "Hot Girl" in this rom-com, which co-starred Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet. Her impressive lines include "Hi" and "No, I'm from LA".
Meghan was 25 when she snagged her fifth TV role. She plays subway cashier Teresa Santos in an episode of this short-lived American sitcom, in which a shy commuter falls for her. Subway cashiers are pretty much a thing of the past in New York City, and when they are seen you can be sure they look nothing like Meghan Markle.
Meghan's appearance on an episode of this US sitcom saw her take on the most lines and the most screen time so far in her career. In it, the show's main character, Dave Gold, played by Michael Rapaport, becomes so obsessed with Meghan's insurance saleswoman character that he begins to hallucinate that she's his wife — and even has added stamina in the bedroom to prove it.
This begins Meghan's foray into the world of TV movies (read: super cheesy acting roles). This one is billed as a "film noir, psychological thriller" and was made for Lifetime. It's about a man who returns to his hometown after his father's death and has an affair with his best friend's wife. Meghan has a small, peripheral role in the film as a character named Gwen.
You know how sometimes you hire someone to clean your apartment and you come home, and they're in the undies, dusting? Happens all the time, right? In CSI: New York's 2006 episode "Murder Sings the Blues", Meghan plays Veronica Perez, who cleans apartments for New York City's rich and famous. Sans clothing. When one of her clients is found dead, she becomes a murder suspect. "I may have slept with Grant Jordan, but I didn't kill him," she says. And anyway, where on Earth could she hide a weapon?
Teen drama 90210 came back in 2008 after a long hiatus. The students at Beverly Hills High have moved way beyond Brenda and Brandon Walsh, and Meghan Markle's character, Wendy, is spending time in the school parking lot participating in questionable activities with boys in cars. (True, she could have been picking something up off of the floor … doesn't look too good, though.) Meghan was featured in two episodes of the revamped series: "The Jet Set" and "We're Not in Kansas Anymore".
Meghan plays a car salesperson named Tara on an episode of the short-lived sitcom called "Joy Ride", starring actor Brad Garrett as Eddie Stark. She's ultimately able to work her magic and sell Eddie a car, which is not very surprising. Wouldn't you buy a car from her?
The Apostles is a made-for-TV crime drama about cops whose work pressures collide with their private lives. Meghan plays a character named Kelly Calhoun.
Meghan has a pretty big role as Sadie Valencia in this made-for-TV crime drama about a mob family named The Wests, who are trying to leave their criminal ways behind. She co-stars with some big names, including Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Tambor and her future Suits co-star Patrick J Adams.
David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff was back in 2009 with a Knight Rider reboot and in it Meghan (who was a one-year-old when the original series hit the airwaves in 1982) plays an ex-soldier named Annie Ortiz. It was her raciest job to date. Her character is a scantily clad cage fighter in an underworld fight club, determined to find out who killed her drill sergeant.
Meghan plays the girlfriend of a vanished college student who ends up being an impostor with multiple identities.
As junior Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Amy Jessup, Meghan has a small role in two episodes of this short-lived series. In her first appearance, she's seen at a crime scene arguing with Joshua Jackson about a car crash that seemed to happen without a driver behind the wheel of the car. Writers of the show had planned on having Amy Jessup return for more episodes but decided against it. It was nothing against the future duchess, producers said, they just wanted to stay focused on the main characters.
Meghan plays a glamorous divorcee named "Random Girl", who bonds with the show's divorced character Pete over their failed marriages. "I completely get it, I'm divorced too," she says to him. She really did completely get it in 2013, when she divorced real-life husband Trevor Engelson after two years of marriage.
Here's a stretch: Meghan makes a cameo as Megan — without the H — in this romantic drama co-starring Rob Pattinson. Her character is a bartender with one line: "Do. Not. Speak." Or is that three lines? Meghan's then-husband-to-be Trevor Engelson produced the film.
Meghan liked CSI: NY so she flew south for more. She plays officer Leah Montoya, who runs into a burning building to try to save a child when the building suddenly collapses. In a dramatic scene, she's carried out by paramedics. It's a serious about-face from her barely there scenes on CSI: NY.
This rather silly comedy starring Jonah Hill and Russell Brand may have come and gone at the box office, but the mystery surrounding it remains: does Russell Brand kiss Meghan Markle, who plays a character named Tatiana, in the film's raucous bar scene? The scene has been analysed and analysed again all over social media. Some say it is Meghan. Others insist it can't be; the woman looks nothing like Meghan — her nose, her profile, her hair, her arms. Not that we looked closely or anything.
We did some digging to try to set the record straight. In some news outlets, Russell Brand, who plays an out of control rock star in the film, says he was too "out of it" to remember if it was Meghan; in others, he says it was her. Watch the clip and decide for yourself.
Meghan has a big part as a secretary named Kat in this eerie, Twilight Zone-ish mystery-thriller short film about a secret society.
Meghan plays Dana in this film, a remake of a 2006 feature about an epic night of partying in Los Angeles. It is billed as "funny, and somewhat outrageous" and promises to inform viewers about what not to mix — and who not to mix with — during a colossal night on the town. "Dana" is a bedhopping druggie who we're certain the Queen would not have approved of.
"You're way too cute to be just a FedEx girl," one of the male characters in Horrible Bosses says to Meghan's character, Jamie, who's delivering a package. "You've gotta be a model or actress or something, right?" Nope — just a future duchess, thanks!
Meghan plays a photographer named Terry in this little-known, unsuccessful comedy about a group of bickering friends who must spend five days living together before each can get their share of their late friend's estate. The fun part? "Terry" photographs men in their briefs, even asking one of them, who's a little too endowed, to — ahem — make some adjustments.
"This is not porn, it's for the Sunday papers," she tells a male model. "This situation you have going on, it's got to get tucked in. It's got to be put away. It's not going to work. You've gotta tuck it in." OK then.
Spoiler Alert: Women are found dead, dressed as fairytale characters, in this episode— and Meghan ends up being the murderer!
This film was re-released just in time for the royal wedding in May. What a coincidence! The trailer was re-cut to make it look all about Meghan when she didn't play even play the lead. It's about her friend, who meets a guy the old fashioned way when she spills coffee on his shirt — you know how that happens — before letting him slip away. The trailer was re-edited using the word royal as excessively as possible, as in "dating can be a royal pain". Cute.
Meghan landed the starring role in this made-for-TV Hallmark Channel romantic comedy. She played a journalist who leaves her small town for the bright lights of Chicago. She soon realises that there's no place like home — and no boy like her high school sweetheart. "I went after the wrong dream, I just didn't realise it," she weeps in the trailer. Get a hold of yourself, girl.
Meghan plays fashion model Kirsten in the low-budget British movie based on a string of real jewellery heists in London. In it, she's fixated on a bad-boy street artist-turned-armed robber who rides fast motorcycles and spray paints things a la Banksy. And they said it wouldn't last.
She just couldn't stay away from the Hallmark Channel. In her second made-for-TV movie in two years for the network, Meghan stars as a successful businesswoman who's unlucky in love. Desperate for answers, she consults a dating advice manual, which pushes her to pick a "consistent, predictable, average man" as her mate. She is drawn to a goofier, more adventurous guy, so in the end, she ditches the book and follows her heart. Yay.
Suits was, of course, Meghan's bread and butter for years and arguably her best work. She played paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane but was written out of the show (for obvious reasons) in April with an on-screen wedding to castmate Patrick J Adams, with whom she had some pretty steamy on-camera trysts.
After the royal engagement was announced, an adorable video from 1993 of an 11-year-old Meghan on Nickelodeon's Nick News surfaced. In it, Meghan is protesting a sexist Procter & Gamble commercial about dish-washing liquid, explaining that it implies only women do the dishes. She ended up writing a letter to the company, which, in turn, ended up changing the script for the ad. Brava!
In what was probably her most challenging role of all time, Meghan appeared as Briefcase Model No 24 in a total of 34 episodes of the game show. She stood among other models in skimpy dresses and heels, holding briefcases full of "money".
On occasion, she also appeared as Briefcase Model 11 and 12. "I would put that in the category of things I was doing when I was trying to make ends meet," she has said of the show, looking back. "It helped me understand what I'd rather be doing."
Decisions, decisions. That's what Meghan's mind is royally wracked with in this classic American corn chip commercial. Which chip is the right chip? "Thirteen ingredients," she says as she picks up a competitor's bag. "That's more people than I invited to the party." Finally, she settles on the Tostitos and walks away with a smile.
Dolly Parton will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her charity work.