Interview
Chris McNally Embraces Unexpected Romance in Hallmark Movie ‘Holiday Crashers’
Crashing Christmas parties? Sounds like a jolly good time. Two best friends embrace all the fun and glamour of the holiday parties they were not invited to, and they unexpectedly face the prospect of new romances. Toni (Lyndsy Fonseca) meets Justin (Chris McNally), a young entrepreneur, at one of the Christmas parties she crashes, and they hit it off instantly. McNally revealed that there’s much more beneath the surface when it comes to his character in Hallmark’s Holiday Crashers.
“We see that he has been hurt in the past, so he’s got some residual emotional trauma to him that doesn’t stop him from falling in love very quickly, I would say, but it does stop him from maybe being 100% honest about how he feels and upfront about it,” he told Swooon. “We see his own journey there of him learning to acknowledge how he feels and be upfront about it. Obviously, you have to have ups and downs in a movie, so things go well and then not so well, and then there’s a bit of a time gap in this movie.”
Johann Wall / Hallmark Media
The When Calls the Heart actor revealed that Justin and Toni are “really great for each other and stimulate each other intellectually. There is respect for one another in terms of what the other person has achieved or done with their life. That sets us off right away. I think there’s also a physical attraction and great chemistry.”
When Justin needs a lawyer at the last minute, Toni steps in to help because she “seems to be the right fit for the job.” This is a win-win for Justin, who can ensure his retreat goes well and he gets to spend time with the woman he’s interested in. “Justin keeps seeing her at these Christmas parties,” McNally noted. “He doesn’t really have as much time to chat with her as I think he would like, and then this opportunity to bring a new lawyer into this company retreat comes along, and I would say that’s where we start our main journey.”
McNally was drawn to the format of Holiday Crashers because it felt “different from what we typically see during the Countdown to Christmas holiday movies.” Holiday Crashers is far from his first Countdown to Christmas movie. His first, Hearts of Christmas, premiered all the way back in 2016.
Since we were on the topic of crashing parties, McNally revealed that he crashed one in the past and “made a really great friend” in the process. “I knew that I wasn’t invited, and I knew they wouldn’t let me in, but I lived only a couple blocks away from the venue, and so I waited until like 10, 11 p.m. where I felt like nobody really was paying attention anymore, and I snuck in and had a really great time,” he revealed.
Holiday Crashers, Movie Premiere, October 19, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel
