Meet the New ‘Harry & Meghan’ in Lifetime’s ‘Escaping the Palace’

Lifetime has found its latest Prince Harry and Meghan Markle!

The network announced Wednesday that it has cast Sydney Morton and Jordan Dean as the former Suits actress and former royal, respectively, for its upcoming flick Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace.

This project comes three years after the cable network documented the couple’s whirlwind romance in double-header TV movies Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance and Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal. In those films, Parisa Fitz-Henry and Murray Fraser and Tiffany Smith and Charlie Field played the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

This time around, The Punisher alum Dean will take on the role of the redheaded son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, while Morton, previously seen in She’s Gotta Have It, will embody the actress-turned-princess.

Production for the movie will begin this week in Vancouver and the film will debut on Lifetime this fall.

According to the Lifetime synopsis, Escaping the Palace will explore “what really happened inside the palace that drove Harry and Meghan to leave everything behind in order to make a future for themselves and their son Archie.

“The movie will detail Meghan’s growing isolation and sadness, their disappointment that ‘The Firm’ was not defending them against the press’s attacks and Harry’s fear that history would repeat itself and he would not be able to protect his wife and son from the same forces that may have contributed to his mother’s untimely death,” the release continues.

Lifetime

The television movie will also dive into the relationship between Harry and his brother William (played by returning star Jordan Whalen) and father Charles (a returning Steve Coulter), as well as Kate (Laura Mitchell reprising her role) and Meghan.

Other returning cast members include Maggie Sullivun as Queen Elizabeth II, Melanie Nicholls-King as Doria Ragland, Bonnie Soper as Princess Diana, Deborah Ramsay as Camilla, and James Dreyfus as palace insider Leonard.

In addition to playing Jake Campbell in the second season of Marvel’s The Punisher, Dean has been seen in Amazon’s Z: The Beginning of Everything, HBO’s High Maintenance, USA’s The Sinner, and more. You may recognize Morton from her roles in Netflix’s Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker and as Alex on NBC’s Manifest, among others.

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace, Fall 2021, Lifetime