Meghan Markle opened up to Ellen DeGeneres about her days as an actor

After a whirlwind trip to New York City earlier this month, Meghan Markle is making her first daytime talk show appearance since she married Prince Harry in 2018. On Thursday, the duchess will join Ellen DeGeneres on her eponymous TV show, which is set to end after 21 seasons next year. The show shared a clip from the pre-taped interview on its social media accounts on Wednesday morning.

In the video, Meghan discusses her experiences traveling to the Warner Bros backlot for auditions early in her career as an actress. “The security guards would always say, ‘Break a leg! We hope you get it!’ So the drive in today was very different,” she said. “I think they probably said it to everybody. That’s how nice they were.”

Meghan also told the daytime host about the Ford Explorer Sport with “a life of its own” that she used to drive. “I would park in the back of the parking lot and open the trunk, then climb in and pull it shut behind me and crawl over all my seats to get out,” she said. “That’s how I would come to and fro.”

Meghan and DeGeneres are currently neighbours in the exclusive Santa Barbara enclave Montecito, but their friendship dates back to a chance encounter at a dog shelter years before Meghan joined the royal family. In 2016, Meghan told the Canadian magazine Best Health that DeGeneres and wife Portia De Rossi entered the Los Angeles shelter while Meghan was trying to decide if she should adopt her Labrador and shepherd mix, Bogart, and DeGeneres encouraged her to take the leap. “She’s like ‘You’re taking the dog home,’” Meghan said. “And she walks outside to get into her car but instead of getting in she turns around and comes and taps on the window glass and she yells ‘Take the dog!’ And so I brought him home. Because Ellen told me to.”

Meghan Markle’s appearance on the show comes at the end of a busy few weeks for the mother of two, who took a few months off from public appearances after giving birth to daughter Lili Mountbatten-Windsor in early June. In addition to appearances with Prince Harry to honour Veterans Day, Meghan also spoke at a panel about her decision to reach out to politicians, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, to discuss the importance of paid leave for caregivers.