After two tries at last Rhiannon Fish is part of royalty — like Meghan Markle. Well, not exactly. Fish’s foray into nobility is by way of the third fictional saga, “A Prince in Paradise: A Royal Wedding.” And the nuptials are streaming exclusively on Great American Pure Flix, beginning Thursday, July 30. Fish plays a commoner who manages to beguile the noble prince.

But Fish is used to beguiling. She was only 11 when she started acting. The veteran of scores of Hallmark movies and films for Great American Family, Fish admits, “Acting is my first love, my true love, and it fulfills me in a way that nothing else does. It’s just so much fun to make a living playing dress-up and make-believe and get to tell these stories. It’s a dream job. I love it more than anything.”

And while Fish may surmount aristocracy on film, in real life she’s still the shy girl who grew up in Australia. “I get nervous a lot for no reason,” she confides, “before I enter into any room. For an example, I'll do an entire movie with the same cast and crew, and there will be a wrap party. And I never go to the wrap party because I am nervous.

“It doesn't make sense. We’ve all been together this entire time, what is different about this? And I know I'm very confident at my job. I know my place and what I'm supposed to do be doing, but in a social setting I'm nervous. I'm shy. I'd very much like to change that. I would like to be able to walk in and feel that even though I'm not employed to be there, that I have a place there, and I am confident being there.”

Though Fish was born in Calgary, Alberta, her family moved to Australia when she was 4. Her dad, an engineer, worked in Nigeria and Russia while the family stayed home in Australia. Fish thinks she’s lucky to have immigrated there. “The wonderful thing about being in Australia is it's a much smaller pond and I did smaller roles. So it was a really great place to learn without being encompassed by the industry.”

While she prevailed in her homeland, like so many actors, Fish determined to try her luck in L.A. And that didn’t go so well. “I found success quite early, especially in Australia,” she recalls.

“It was when I moved to the states I think there's this idea that you have to outgrow Australia and move to L.A. And that's where you're going to make it. That just doesn't happen for everybody.

“So when I got to L.A., I was very homesick. I think that was sort of reflecting in my auditions. I just wasn't in a good place, and it wasn't until I moved to Canada — then I found home again. And I found this entirely new lease on the industry.

“That was when I started to make Great American Family movies or Hallmark movies — basically movies for television. I found my second wind of work which I'm so grateful for.” She says she hasn’t stopped acting since she snagged that first part in an Australian soap as a little girl.

“Any time when I wasn't working and there was a break between jobs, I continued to audition and I continue to work as much as much is possible and I hope to do that for the rest of my life,” she says.

But Fish also harbors other plans for the rest of her life. “I'm 35 and I want to have a family; to have children. I've had so much success in my career... I really feel ready to have children,” she says.

“I can see that part of my life passing me by and having prioritized my career over family, that scares me. So I hope there's a world where I could have it all and that I can act and I could still go on to become a mother. It's definitely my dream.”

But when asked about a sweetheart to share that dream, she demurs, “I’ve got a few,” is all she’ll say.

Very close to her sister, who’s two years younger than Fish, she had an older sister, Corinne, who died 12 years ago. And while she doesn’t want to talk about that loss, she does say, “It's a reminder that yes time is precious.

“I love this saying that we have, ‘To give people their flowers.’ Like if you love somebody, tell them. Do you think somebody did a great job at work? If somebody did a great job at work today, tell them that. If somebody looks beautiful, tell them. You just don't know when is the last time you're going to see somebody. And you never want to look back and say, ‘Damn, I wish I’d emailed that person or texted that person, or told that person how much I love them.”

Rockers recall salad days in doc

People may have heard of the Chateau Marmont hotel or the Beverly Hilton. But a lesser known hotel, the Sunset Marquis, has been the home of a gaggle of famous rock ‘n’ rollers: Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Ringo Starr, Billy Bob Thornton, Slash, Dave Grohl, Cyndi Lauper, Morrissey, Roger Daltrey, Joe Elliot, Nancy Wilson and Steve Van Zandt.

A new film docking on Amazon and Apple TV Aug. 14, "If These Walls Could Rock,” will feature many of those stars and more — recalling their salad days and nights at the Sunset Marquis. One of those is Thornton, who’s better known for his role as the tough oil man in “Landman,” but also harbors a musical side.

Thornton says, “I wanted to be an actor ‘cause I couldn't be a baseball player. Because when I was a kid, I was raised around a lot of characters. I was raised in Arkansas, and every block had either a weirdo or a really great person — there were all kinds of characters and there's a lot of storytelling and imitating that goes on down there. And it’s sorta a fun atmosphere in terms of talking about characters.

"And I always loved it. I guess that's probably why I do what I do in movies. I always play somebody kinda different. If I had to play like myself in every movie or TV show, I don't know if I’d have very much fun at it. Hopefully not for obvious reasons.”

Bear Grylls challenges biblical cast

Trainer and adventurer Bear Grylls is at it again. Only this time he’s challenging Jesus, Matthew, Mary Magdalene and Judas. In ‘’‘The Chosen’ in the Wild with Bear Grylls” premiering on Prime Video Aug. 9, the cast from “The Chosen” will be trekking across forests, deserts and death defying canyons.

Grylls will lead them through the treacherous Castle Valley, Canyonland and the Great Basin Desert. Though these are “spiritual” actors, Grylls will spare them not from these rigorous tests.

He says he gleaned his sense of adventure through his dad. “It was such a big part of my upbringing really. I was brought up doing this sort of stuff with my dad, not only the climbing but he was really into the survival stuff and the outdoors. But I think as a really young kid it was my way of being close to him more than climbing and learning how to make shelters and stuff.

“That’s the world I was brought up in and when I joined the Army I joined the special forces in the U.K. And my specialty there was not only the climbing and parachuting also combat survival. So it’s always been a big part of my life. I had a parachuting accident while I was in the Army and broke my back and had to eventually leave the Army. Looking back now, I feel very lucky really to be able to do stuff that I thought I’d never be able to do.”

‘Dancer’ film features Amy Aquino

An unusual film, “Rhythm is a Dancer,” arrives on demand Aug. 4. It’s the story of a young woman, played by Lauren Caster, whose dance career is fading. She travels home to meet her biological father and her lesbian mother, who chose insemination to give birth to her child.

How she faces her unconventional background marks the intriguing part of the story. Tate Donovan portrays her father, Amy Aquino is her mother. Aquino, who was so brilliant as the precinct boss in “Bosch,” tells me she loved theater from the get-go.

“I started theater in junior high school and did a ton of it in high school. And I continued it in college,” she says. “While I loved it, I figured it wasn’t a way to make a living, which it isn’t statistically speaking. I also loved medicine and biology. So I kept that up, but in my junior year I found myself spending 40 hours a week on theater — in a place with no theater department, and five hours a week at my biology. So I figured, ‘OK, I’ve got to give it a try.’

“My parents were fine about it because I got my degree and they knew the acting might not work out, and I had something to back me up. So if it didn’t work out, I would be able to make a living. My mother sang opera. She was a real character, and she loved the idea of my being an actress. She loved being able to see me. They came to all my shows. She always said I played the nurse in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in junior high school, and she wept at the last scene — bless her heart. She always said, ‘It’ll be much more exciting to watch you onstage than to watch you in an operating theater.’”

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