Exclusive Interview
Nikki DeLoach Embraces ‘Inspiring & Beautiful’ Romantic Tale in Hallmark’s ‘Our Holiday Story’
Nikki DeLoach is one of Hallmark Channel‘s brightest stars, and we look forward to seeing her every year during Countdown to Christmas. This time around, she’s teaming up with Warren Christie for the wonderful Our Holiday Story, where their characters share how they met and fell in love. DeLoach has starred in plenty of romances for Hallmark, but there’s something different about this one.
“To be perfectly honest, I had called the network because for the past five years, or maybe even more, I’ve done the more dramatic movies on our Hallmark Mystery network,” she told Swooon. “There’s been a lot of crying grief movies, and they are some of my favorite movies I’ve ever made, not just on Hallmark but in my career. They’re so meaningful, and they’ve touched people when I was going through grief at the time when I did them.”
Hallmark Media / Paulina Stevens
She continued, “But this year, specifically, I really wanted to go back to doing a comedy, something light, something with humor. When I got this script, all I had to do was see that Joie Botkin wrote it, and without even reading it, I knew it was probably going to be a yes for me because Joie Botkin is one of my favorite holiday writers.”
Our Holiday Story takes place in two different time periods. As Nell (DeLoach) and Dave (Christie) tell their love story, the film flashes back to years earlier when their relationship started to blossom. “I think what moved me the most about their love story is the fact that you see them in the present day, so you know that of all these years being married and assuming the best of each other and accepting each other for who you know you are and I am, that part of it, that’s a choice,” DeLoach explained. “It’s a choice that we make every day when we wake up next to the person that we’re married to and the person that we love, and it’s a choice that we have to make of like, I accept you, I love you, you are mine. Let’s do this.”
The actress added, “I always say to people I have no marriage advice. I don’t know what a successful marriage looks like. I just know what my marriage is like because I’m in it, and everybody’s so different. But I’ve been married to my husband for 15 years and have been together 25 years, and the only thing I can share is I just wake up each day, and I choose him, and then we get through that day together.”
For DeLoach, marriage is a “day-by-day thing,” and she sees so much of her marriage in Dave and Nell. “You wake up, you choose that person, and you move through the day together. Looking at Dave and Nell, it’s something that they really have chosen to do, and I just found that really inspiring and beautiful,” she said.
DeLoach and Christie are both Hallmark mainstays, but this is the first time they’ve worked together. “He’s a phenomenal actor, and we’re very similar with our work,” DeLoach gushed. “We care a lot. We take it very seriously. You only have 15 days, so you don’t get a lot of rehearsal time, and sometimes you’re trying to find what the scene is in the moment. He was such a good person to play off of and to bounce those ideas off of. He really loves the craft of acting, and he loves playing, and he’s just a good person, too.”
The actress is also actively writing scripts for Hallmark. She and writing partner Megan McNulty have worked on several projects, including True Justice: Family Ties and Christmas for Keeps.
“I can’t stop thinking of ideas,” DeLoach admitted. “I was like that as a kid. I feel so blessed by it, though, because I do feel like creativity is a living, breathing thing, and it finds its way to you.”
She’s constantly opening up her mind and heart to ideas. “I love, love, love coming up with stories to tell, and I just feel like everything that we do, no matter what it is, whether it’s listening to a podcast or reading a book or doing Our Holiday Story, if you stay open and you’re paying attention, it’s going to inspire you as a writer.”
Our Holiday Story, Movie Premiere, November 2, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel
