Meghan Markle made news last week when it was announced that she had signed with top talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME), and would be working with superstar agent Ari Emanuel, who is in fact so good at his job that he was fictionalized in HBO’s hit series Entourage.
While it has been made clear that acting is not the focus of Meghan’s agency representation—instead “film and television production, brand partnerships, and overall business-building will be explored”—Meghan still has Hollywood on her mind, Page Six reports. Not acting, as was once her career before marrying into the royal family, but rather the business side of the film and television industry—to become a “power player,” a source tells the outlet.
Page Six reports that Meghan will make millions from the deal, which has been in the works for the past few months. A source tells the outlet that the WME signing will make Meghan a force to be reckoned with in her own right, away from Prince Harry’s royal limelight. “This deal is about making Meghan a power player in Hollywood,” a highly placed Hollywood insider tells the outlet. “Even though she is, of course, an actress, this isn’t about movies or shows for Meghan to star in. It is about creating projects for her to produce. She wants to run the show.”
Page Six reports that Harry and Meghan are facing extraordinary financial pressure, with bills mounting to the tune of $2 million annually for private security and the balance of their $14.5 million estate in Montecito still looming. “They need to find a way to make money—this is business,” a source says, with a second source adding “Through the fact that Archewell [her company with Harry] is now repped by WME, it bolsters Harry and Meghan’s bid to become power players in the production arena.”
And Meghan’s rumored project roster fills up more each week: A possible relaunch of her lifestyle blog, The Tig; a potential memoir of her own; a new Netflix documentary that would take her and Harry to South Africa; and, as Page Six reports, a second season of her Spotify podcast “Archetypes.” Last year, Meghan told Variety she was interested in making romantic comedies: “Don’t we miss them? I miss them so much,” she told the outlet.
Meghan is, a source tells Page Six, “living in the present and she’s going to explore her life with the freedoms that her new life affords her.” The deal will be “more solely focused” on Meghan and her business ventures, the source says: “She has a lot of business ideas, she considers herself an entrepreneur, and now there’s a machine behind her to support those ideas,” the source says. “She founded The Tig, and she’s a cofounder of Archewell, so she’s clearly able to do that.”
One key plan is to increase Archewell’s “brand recognition” globally, an insider says. “This is definitely not a move back into acting,” the source says. “Meghan is exceptionally ambitious. The deal is for her for film and TV production, brand partnerships, and endorsements. Both Meghan and Harry have said they want purpose-focused deals for their charities, but she is looking for big Hollywood projects.”
