Meet glamorous Argentine actress Delfina Chaves to play Queen Máxima in new TV drama

The Crown may finally be coming to an end later this year, but diehard royal fans will soon have another drama to sink their teeth into.

Earlier this month, the recordings for a new TV series based on Queen Máxima of the Netherlands started in New York.

The show – titled Máxima Zorreguieta: Motherland – will dramatize the Dutch Queen’s upbringing in Argentina and how a chance encounter with Prince Willem-Alexander changed the course of her life forever.

Delfina Chaves, who like Meg Bellamy is tipped as a superstar, will play the hugely popular royal and is the actress who plays Kate Middleton in the final season of the Netflix series.

The super-glamorous actress, 27, is already a mega star in Maxima’s homeland – she’s already appeared in hit shows like Love After Loving, Rap Battlefield and The Secret of the Greco Family.

However, her latest role in the Queen Máxima biopic will catapult the young actress to new heights.

Delfina was born in Lobos, Argentina in February 1996 to Miguel Angel Chaves and Alejandra Schulz.

While her father worked as an architect, Delfina’s mother was also an actress – appearing in the 1987 Argentine film What We Are Made Of.

At the age of 16, Delfina appeared in the sitcom Concubinos with her older sister Paula Chaves – who is 11 years her senior and now works as a TV presenter.

Moreover, the star has also opened up about her close relationship with her mother in the past and credits her for her success in the acting world.

In April 2018, the actress shared a selfie with her mother and wrote, “Mom, you are the most generous and pure human being I know.

“It’s always a good opportunity to remind you!”

Having already made a name for herself in TV dramas, Delfina set her sights on the role of Maxima.

After the lengthy audition process, it was announced in March of this year that Delfina Maxima would play opposite Martijn Lakemeier – who has been cast as King Willem-Alexander.

Delfina confirmed the happy news on her Instagram, gushing, “I never imagined an opportunity like this.”

In addition, the star also said that her father was the first person she told about taking on the role of Máxima earlier this year.

She told Yahoo, “Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. I got in my car, drove to my dad and I was shaking.’

The actress has always been a brunette and has since dyed her natural brown hair a bright blonde to mimic Máxima’s vibrant locks.

Before shooting started, Delfina moved to Amsterdam to learn more about the country where Máxima and her husband have ruled for the past 10 years.

In addition to her acting, Delfina has spent years building her Instagram account, which now has 1.2 million followers.

In recent months, the star has worked on campaigns with high-profile brands such as YSL, Givenchy, Puma, Volkswagen, Bombay Sapphire and nail polish company Sally Hansen.

The upcoming series will contain six hour long episodes and will start with the first meeting between Maxima and Willem-Alexander in 1999.

The drama follows Maxima’s transition to royal life and the obstacles she had to overcome along the way, including the tragic death of a sister and Dutch public anger over her father’s involvement with the military junta responsible for the ‘dirty war’. in which thousands of people died.

Discussing the drama, Delfina said she was very happy that the show will focus on Maxima’s perspective.

She said: ‘Who she was and what she wanted from life was attributed by the outside world first to her father and then to her prince.

“I love that the series is now telling its story, from its point of view.”

Filming for the series started in New York, where Maxima lived when she first met her future husband.

Maxima’s father was an established politician and served as Minister of Agriculture under the regime of General Jorge Rafael Videla, commander-in-chief of the army and member of the right-wing junta then ruling Argentina.

His involvement with the dictatorship would later become a problem for Maxima to face. It is remembered as the period of the ‘dirty war’ against political opponents in Argentina. Up to 30,000 people died.

Maxima spent her childhood in Buenos Aires with two brothers, a sister and three half-sisters.

The future queen was educated at the city’s English-style Northlands school, where she earned a bilingual baccalaureate degree in 1988 and was fluent in Spanish and English.

Later she learned to speak both Dutch and conversational French.

She continued her studies at the Universidad Católica Argentina, where she graduated in 1995 with a degree in economics.

While in college, Maxima revealed her strong-willed nature by confronting a priest in a theology class who said “women should serve men,” to which she replied, “then why am I even studying?” causing her to be removed from the class.

After graduating, she worked in Buenos Aires for a short time before moving to the United States, where she took on a series of high-flying roles.

She has served as Vice President of Latin American Institutional Sales for the financial house HSBC James Capel Inc. in New York before moving to Deutsche Bank where she became Vice President of Institutional Sales.

Little did she know that in April 1999, while on vacation in Seville, she would meet the love of her life.

The couple both attended a party at the annual Seville Spring Fair where she bumped into her future husband Prince Willem-Alexander.

During their chance meeting, the future king decided to keep his royalty a secret and only later reveal to Maxima that he was a prince.

When he declared his royal status, she thought it was a joke. However, the fact that Maxima was unaware of his royal ties did not seem to dampen their relationship, as Willem had flown to New York two weeks later to meet her.

Although they had a serious relationship, Maxima did her best to keep the prince’s identity a secret.

She said: ‘I would tell them something different (about Willem) every time, but at a certain point there was nothing else to do but say: ‘He is the Prince of the Netherlands.’