Hollywood will re pay the kindness of the recent visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with a made-for-TV movie.
“William & Catherine: A Royal Romance” will air Aug. 27 on the Hallmark Channel, featuring an international cast of U.S., Canadian and British actors in roles familiar to anyone who has followed the Royal Family over the past decades. Canadian actor Vince Garber will play William’s father Prince Charles, Jane Alexander will play his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, and Jean Smart will play his stepmother Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Twenty-three-year-old English rose Alice St. Clair and newcomer Dan Amboyer will play William and Catherine. The film follows their romance from the moment Prince William, then in his first year at Scotland’s St. Andrews University, met the middle-class Kate Middleton. Garber hasn’t met too many Royals, but was more than willing to play one on TV.
“As a kid from London, Ontario, I remember when the Queen came to our town and I saw her drive by in a car. It was kind of a momentous occasion for me. I’m not obsessed with them, like some people are, but I certainly have enormous respect. It was a great thing to be able to step in there,” he said.
Garber believes the recent royal wedding restored some of the luster to the crown. He hopes, too, that A Royal Romance will help humanise the father-son relationship between Prince Charles and Prince William. “I think that, because enough time has passed since the tragedy of (William’s mother) Diana’s death, they’re being seen in a different way,” Garber said. “William and Kate have definitely had an enormously positive effect on their reputation and how they’re perceived.”
