Bethany Joy Lenz & Kristoffer Polaha Check In With Us About Their ‘Biltmore Christmas’ (VIDEO)
Welp, the Hallmark Channel has done it again!
For what seems like the fourth or fifth year in a row, the home of Countdown to Christmas has upped their game when it comes to originality, production values and casting. We’ve seen it in the creatively clever Where Are You, Christmas? and again in last week’s wonderfully emotional A Merry Scottish Christmas with Party of Five siblings Scott Wolf and Lacey Chabert. This week, the wow factor comes courtesy of A Biltmore Christmas, a super-crafty tale of time travel and old Hollywood that was filmed at one of America’s grandest addresses.
Hallmark Media
Bethany Joy Lenz stars as a screenwriter penning the remake of His Merry Wife!, a faux classic film that was also shot at the famed Biltmore Hotel. While visiting the Asheville spot for research, she is magically whisked back in time to the 1947 production and into a cinematic love story with Wife! star Jack Huston (Kristoffer Polaha). In addition to the spectacular location, the film—which shot in January of this year—is filled with top-notch costuming and vintage flair, all of which are surrounded by the sprawling Gilded Age hotel’s actual holiday decor.
“That is one of the things that was so exciting,” says Lenz said when we recently chatted with her and Polaha. “I remember when they said they were doing A Biltmore Christmas, I was like, please tell me that we get to go see all of the decorations…and we did, they left them all up for us for a month. It was so beautiful.”
Twinkling lights and lush swags of garland aren’t the only details fans will likely be swooning over. Not only is Polaha a perfect choice to play a ’40s matinee idol (“It was a good fit,” he agrees. “I think I missed my era.”), but there is also a surprisingly hilarious moment near the end of the film that is sure to be the bee’s knees for savvy Hallmarkers who know a few things about the network’s own classics.
Watch the full video interview above for more.
A Biltmore Christmas, Movie Premiere, Sunday, November 26, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel
