The Suits Years

A decade of auditions, then seven seasons as Rachel Zane.

The grind (2002–2010)

After graduating Northwestern in 2003, Markle spent the better part of a decade as a working actor in Los Angeles. The documented credits:

• 2002 — television debut on the soap General Hospital.
• 2005–2006 — small film parts, including A Lot Like Love.
• 2006–2007 — “briefcase model” on the NBC game show Deal or No Deal, a job she has discussed as unglamorous but paying work.
• 2008–2012 — guest roles on 90210, Fringe, Castle, The League, and others, plus films including Remember Me (2010) and Horrible Bosses (2011).

She has also described freelance calligraphy work — hand-lettering wedding invitations, including for celebrity clients — as a side income during lean years. The detail is hers, from pre-royal interviews, and it became a favorite press anecdote.

Cast as Rachel Zane (2011)

In 2011 she was cast as Rachel Zane on the USA Network’s new legal drama Suits, created by Aaron Korsh. Rachel — a brilliant paralegal with a photographic memory, working her way toward the bar while entangled with the show’s fraudulently credentialed protagonist — became Markle’s signature role.

The show filmed in Toronto, which became her home base for seven years. She appeared in 108 episodes across seven seasons, from the 2011 pilot through the seventh-season midseason finale.

The departure (2017)

As her relationship with Prince Harry became public in late 2016 and 2017, her Suits future became a press question. Her final episode — the season 7 midseason finale, “Good-Bye,” in which Rachel marries Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams, who left alongside her) — aired in August 2017. The departure was reported as her decision, tied to the move toward royal life.

Why it matters to the record

The Suits years are the best-documented stretch of her pre-royal life: episode credits, press tours, Paley Center panels, and Toronto as a lived-in base. They are also where her advocacy voice developed publicly — UN Women, World Vision, and The Tig all date from the Toronto period. And the show’s afterlife is part of the story too: Suits became a streaming phenomenon in 2023, introducing Rachel Zane to an audience that had never seen the original run.

Source notes

• Credits and dates: series and episode records; Suits ran 2011–2019, Markle in seasons 1–7 (108 episodes).
• Deal or No Deal (2006–2007), early guest roles: pre-royal filmography and interviews.
• Departure (2017): contemporary reporting; final episode “Good-Bye” (S7E10), August 2017.