What is life like outside Buckingham Palace? For the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it means working from home, sharing an office, making breakfast and getting the little ones set for the day. In an exclusive interview with 'Variety' from the couple's $12.36 million mansion in Montecito, California, Meghan said: "We share an office. We work from home, as most people started to do during lockdown. It allows us to have significant time with our kids at this really special moment in their lives. We'll never get this time back. I make breakfast, and we get the kids set for the day."
Continuing about their routine, Meghan, whose podcast Archetypes is garnering a solid listenership, said: "My husband is in a 24-hour time zone, where half of your life is waking up as the other half is going to sleep. It's kind of the reverse of what I went through living in the U.K. "He's very good at responding on text. Me, I try to be as fast as possible on email. I've always said, if it takes less than five minutes, do it now."
Talking about life in their "neck of the woods", Meghan said: "It's funny. People sometimes think we live in Los Angeles, but we're a good two hours outside of it. We're commuters.
"We drove down recently for a day of back-to-back meetings, equipped with chocolate chip cookies the size of my toddler's head. Also, my husband's favourite is In-N-Out. There's one at the halfway point between L.A. and our neck of the woods. It's really fun to go through the drive-thru and surprise them. They know our order."
In the freewheeling 'Variety' interview, whose subjects ranged from mourning for Queen Elizabeth to the couple's plans for their company, Archewell, Meghan also looked back at her association with Hollywood and how much the entertainment business has changed since she left 'Suits', the hugely popular American legal drama TV series.
"I left 'Suits' right after the 100th episode, in 2018," Meghan said. "I didn't think I'd ever be in the entertainment industry again. But the entire culture has changed; streamers have changed things.
The ability to create zeitgeist moments like we had in the '90s -- where everyone would tune in at the same time for a show or gather for one moment -- that doesn't happen anymore. When I was doing 'Suits', that character, Rachel Zane, was in your living room with you while you were in your pajamas eating Chinese takeout. That's how connected the experience felt then.
"But to create a cultural moment or conversation requires something different today. Podcasting has been really interesting in that way. It might be one of the only remaining forums where people are alone to listen. Where else do you have that opportunity?"
Archewell is reported to have signed content deals with Netflix and Spotify, so what is Meghan's vision for their company?
Without giving away much, Meghan told 'Variety': "So much of how my husband and I see things is through our love story. I think that's what people around the world connected to, especially with our wedding. People love love. ... And our definition of love is really expansive: Partner love, self-love, the love of community and family. We use that as the baseline of the kind of shows and documentaries we want out there.
"For my husband, the Invictus Games have been such a huge piece of his life and his work, having been in the army for 10 years and working for the rehabilitation of wounded vets and their families. We talk about emotional injuries that come from those types of experiences. Those are love stories.
"For scripted, we want to think about how we can evolve from that same space and do something fun! It doesn't always have to be so serious. Like a good rom-com. Don't we miss them? I miss them so much. I've probably watched 'When Harry Met Sally' a million times. And all the Julia Roberts rom-coms. We need to see those again."
