Meghan Markle’s Forgotten Summer Hallmark Movie: What to Know About ‘When Sparks Fly’

Just three years before her November 2017 engagement to Prince Harry, and four years before their marriage cemented her place as a British royal, Meghan Markle starred in her first Hallmark movie. Following her stint as a Deal or No Deal briefcase model, her two-episode appearance on the Fox drama Fringe, and amid her lead role on Suits, the then future Duchess of Sussex made her Hallmark movie debut in 2014’s When Sparks Fly.

Directed by Gary Yates, with Ted Bauman serving as producer, When Sparks Fly starred Markle as young journalist Amy Peterson who, unhappy with her big city life and her current GQ-handsome businessman boyfriend, is sent back to her hometown by her editor at the “Chicago Post” to write an article about growing up in her parents’ fireworks business amid the Fourth of July holiday.

“Amy arrives home to write her article, but is quickly derailed by her best friend, Sammie, who enlists Amy to be the official planner of her upcoming Fourth of July wedding to – of all people – Amy’s ex-boyfriend, Hank,” the film’s synopsis reads. “As Amy struggles to cater to Sammie’s wedding demands and work on her newspaper assignment, her feelings for Hank start to resurface. Is Hank feeling the same way? Will their old flame rekindle as the time approaches for sparks to fly?”

Along with Markle, the movie starred Christopher Jacot as Hank, Kristina Pesic as Sammie, Lochlyn Munro as Amy’s current boyfriend Phil, and Keith MacKechnie and Jacqueline Samuda as Amy’s parents.

The film released in 2016 to mostly mixed reviews. While When Sparks Fly holds a 5/10 on IMDb and 70% of Google users liked the movie, it was given a certified rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where it only holds a 13% audience score.

Two years after When Sparks Fly‘s debut, Markle starred in her second, and last, Hallmark movie, 2016’s Dater’s Handbook. The film, also tarring Kristoffer Polaha and Jonathan Scarfe, marked one of her final acting roles before she retired from acting in order officially join the British royal family. Although the duchess hasn’t returned to acting, stepping away as a working royal, she has returned to the entertainment world, appearing alongside her husband in Netflix original series Harry & Meghan and hosting the Archetypes podcast. A second Netflix original series, celebrating “the joys of cooking and gardening, entertaining, and friendship,” reportedly recently wrapped filming.