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Prince William was an integral part of the controversy that went down when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to give castle duties a miss, step down as royals and build a life outside of the palace gates. For better or for worse, he found himself at the center of all the gossip that spread soon after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry decided to unleash truth bombs at Oprah Winfrey's no-holds-barred interview.
Lifetime's Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace largely chronicles Meghan and Harry's lives and how they battled it out. However, as is the case in real life, Prince William's character will have a crucial role to play.
Who plays Prince William in Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace?
This is not Jordan Whalen's first time playing Prince William. Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal saw him transform his Iowan accent into a British one. It took him hours of research and acute observation to nail the elements the Prince is known for.
Speaking to Marie Claire, he said:
"I was most familiar with Prince William after the royal wedding in 2011. All of the sudden he's in the news here in America and enough people were like, Oh my god, you really look like him. My ears pricked up and I was like, Oh okay," says Whalen. "I started to follow him a little bit more, but when I was cast as him it was like, Whoa, this is something I really have to work on."
It wasn't easy playing Prince William
In the said interview, he detailed how the makeup artists would spend hours trying to give him a bald spot. They would bleach and pluck his hair to give it a pattern exactly like Prince William's.
Whalen even watched 75 hours of the Prince's videos to get his accent and mannerisms right.
He further elaborated:
"You have to get comfortable with your wife and your brother and your sister-in-law, so I needed to immediately become familiar with my castmates. Much of my scenes were with Harry, so we were like, Let's just hang out and cultivate a familiarity so we can be brothers."
Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace will premiere on Labor Day, September 6, Monday at 8.00 pm Eastern Time (ET). Also starring Sydney Morton, Laura Mitchell and Maggie Sullivun, the film is the third installment from the Harry & Meghan franchise and has been directed by Menhaj Huda.
