The ‘Face of Emirates’, who will be instantly recognized by tens of millions of passengers who have flown with the Dubai-based airline over the last eight months, has provided a rare inside glimpse into how she got cast to play a flight attendant in a flagship welcome video.
Last June, Emirates launched a new video, which is shown at the start of nearly every flight, that introduces the airline’s award-winning in-flight entertainment system.
Emirates has had several different iterations of this video over the years, but the 2025 version went full-on big-budget Hollywood style and featured a cabin crew member as the lead character.
Except, this wasn’t a real flight attendant: The part was actually played by the British London-based model Harriet Marshall, who has now shared a rare behind-the-scenes look into how she landed the role in a series of TikTok posts.
Harriet was inspired by watching other models and actors post their audition tapes on TikTok, so she did the same.
Here’s the original TikTok that Harriet posted:
@harrietmarshal I love watching these so here’s my version!! #selftape #audition #emirates #model ♬ KOGIS Missing You – kogis ✰
This quickly turned into a series, with Harriet posting scenes from her homemade audition tape that acted out scenes that appeared in the final video:
@harrietmarshal Why are self tapes so humbling 😂 #selftape #emirates #audition #model ♬ original sound – RASHIN
And then came some fascinating behind-the-scenes footage of the video being filmed:
@harrietmarshal One year since we filmed Emirates in flight entertainment video!!!
♬ Lola's Theme – The Shapeshifters
Along with some fascinating insights from Harriet. For example, Harriet says she spent two days rehearsing a Bollywood-style dancing scene with a full troupe of dancers, only for the actual scene to last just two seconds.
And it turns out, a fair amount of luck played its part in Harriet landing the job. Apparently, the casting director initially rejected her and didn’t even pass on her audition tape to Emirates, but when the airline hated on the original choices made by the casting director, Harriet’s audition video was resurfaced.
@harrietmarshal 2 days of rehearsals for 2 seconds of video 😂😂😂 #emirates #bts ♬ step on up – 🫧
Here’s a deeper dive into how Harriet’s casting went:
@harrietmarshal Speed me up I’m rambling on #emirates #audition #modelling #acting ♬ original sound – Harriet Marshall
The question is, would Harriet ever consider becoming an Emirates flight attendant in real life? Well, that’s a definite no, Harriet says, given that she suffers quite badly from motion sickness.
And while Emirates does also use real cabin crew in its marketing campaigns, this isn’t the first time the airline has relied on professional talent.
Perhaps the most notable example of this was in 2021 when Emirates put a ‘flight attendant’ on top of the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building, which stands at 829.8 metres (2,722 feet) tall.
Emirates was so happy that the UK government had eased pandemic-era travel restrictions that it decided to celebrate by employing skydiver and stuntwoman Nicole Smith-Ludvik to announce the news in the breathtaking commercial.
