I look at pictures of Meghan Markle every day. Is that strange? It’s by virtue of my job, of living part of life on Twitter and Instagram while her nuptials with Prince Harry, England’s spare to the heir, rapidly approach. Every single day since her November engagement, there is Meghan Markle. But I don’t think I was prepared to see her standing in front of me three-dimensionally.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’ve never met the soon-to-be royal, or even seen her in person. I have met Madame Tussauds’s Meghan Markle, rendered in wax.
On Wednesday morning, less than a fortnight before the American actress says “I do” in front of God and millions of viewers worldwide, Madame Tussauds in Times Square unveiled its new Markle to press. Past one of the two bars (both open), tour groups, families, and Jimmy Fallon’s excitable, lifeless grin, there was an anteroom that would lead into a recreation of Harry and Markle’s brand-new home. We’d be allowed to go see, shortly, I was told, and until then there was tea and coffee and cucumber sandwiches and assorted pastries. Yes, respectable luncheon food. This is the British royal family we’re here to see, after all.
When we were finally ushered into the replica of a Victorian parlor, where we were told Markle stood, we had to pass two men in Buckingham Palace guard uniforms. They looked like wax, too, until one of them swayed in a suspiciously human way. (They might as well have been wax, though. When I asked one if I could take a picture of him, he remained stony. Only in New York! And also in London!) There, toward the back of the new “Royal Experience,” was a white wall where a projection looped of a man and a woman in tails serving tea and strawberry cream cake. It’s all intended to make the experience of high tea, which will be offered by the museum over the summer, more lifelike.
In the near-right corner as you walk through the doors, the Queen stood alongside Prince William and Kate Middleton (no Charles). The family was gathered behind a white-clothed table with a white-rose centerpiece and Walkers Shortbread. (The Scottish company will be sponsoring the high tea.) Their placement was to make way, I assume, for the “lady of the hour,” as Christine Haughney, the regional head of marketing for Merlin Entertainments (Madame Tussauds’s parent company), put it. At the time, Markle was at a central position for the unveiling.
Wills looks taller “in person.” Older, too. Kate looked flawless, in the two ways a wax figure can: it’s a faithful rendition, and the source material is maddeningly close to perfection in the first place. But if you’ve never seen a wax figure, know that however silly it seems, it can inspire a prickly sort of fear. The bodies are terrifying if you don’t expect them to be occupying the space that they occupy. (The fear has a name—automatonophobia—but what I experienced was probably just a whiff of it.) When I first entered the royal room, the three royals were to my back. Only after feeling a tingle on my neck did I turn around to see the Queen. I had to suppress a yelp. Her features are expertly rendered; I have no doubt the Madame Tussauds version of the elder Elizabeth is as close to exact as is possible with today’s wax technology. But her stony lifelessness is anxiety itself—uncanny valley wearing a tiara.
After Haughney said her piece, they pulled away the dollies that had been obscuring the prince and his new bride. It’s tough to know what to do when your stomach is full of shortbread and sliced cucumbers and you’re staring at Meghan Markle. Clap? One person clapped, but I'm pretty sure he worked for the museum. Mostly, it felt right to just stare and take in the Markleness of the moment. Self-Portrait, the London-based clothing brand, sent over a replica of the dress Markle wore to the Queen’s annual Christmas luncheon, Haughney told me. Harry, who has been at Tussauds since 2014, got a new suit for the occasion. They looked sharp, and—you know what?—it really does look like her. I lifted my phone and took one picture.
The royal family inspires one of two feelings in an American: fanaticism or blanket acceptance of their existence as a simple matter of fact. We don’t have to engage with any complicated feelings born out of living under a monarchy in the 21st century. (Don’t worry; we have our own stuff.) The family is allowed to just be a diversion. It turns out wax figures make a similar impression. You’re either extremely in for humanoid-shaped lumps resembling famous people that you can touch and take pictures with, or you don’t understand it at all. Meghan Markle, an American who will become a royal, can bridge both of those gaps. For some, at least.
She stood there with a closed-mouthed smile, unlike most of the other royals gathered who showed pearly teeth. It took four months to create the thing, Haughney said. And maybe because I’ve been staring at pictures of her for just as long, even her lifeless, life-size portrayal didn’t freak me out. As with the royal family, so too with wax: it feels far away, and perhaps pointless, until it’s one of your own.
