Exclusive Interview
Get Up to Speed on Andrew Walker’s New Hallmark Rom-Com ‘Jingle Bell Run’
If you’re into the Hallmark of it all, you have probably noticed that the Countdown to Christmas brand has really upped its game. The movies are slicker, locations are cooler, the scripts are smarter and the actors are clearly having more fun than ever. Sure, the classic tropes are there, but so is a cheeky level of self-awareness and a lot more comedy. It’s a shift that has Hallmark fave Andrew Walker smiling like a big-city exec who just helped the small-town gal he’s falling for save her parents’ hot cocoa factory.
“Five years ago, we weren’t doing these types of movies,” says the Curious Caterer Mysteries star, who has this weekend’s Jingle Bell Run ready to go ahead of next week’s Three Wiser Men and a Boy. “So it’s a true testament to the higher-ups at Hallmark and these incredibly brilliant female minds [at the top] that have all come together to allow us to just broaden our comedic horizons.”
Hallmark Media / Allister Foster
Calling Jingle Bell Run “a broad comedy,” Walker—an unexpectedly adept funnyman wrapped in an offensively handsome package—was thrilled to be paired with Ashley Williams, “who’s had a long history of comedy and half-hour sitcom shows” ranging from How I Met Your Mother to The Jim Gaffigan Show. The two star as polar opposites—he’s a braggy retired hockey star, and she’s a low-key school teacher—who are partnered on the Amazing Race-ish reality competition, The Great Holiday Dash. Over the course (get it?) of various challenges, Wes and Avery find that their differences may be exactly what they need to win. All the while, obviously, winning one another other.
“I love the partnership between Wes, my character, and Ashley’s character because she’s a teacher, and what she does in her day-to-day life is so much greater than what I did in my career,” continues Walker, adding that the rom-com aspect is only made sweeter by a message of goodwill to others. “Being an NHL hockey player, that’s great. But she’s a hero, an actual hero. Waking up, teaching these kids. And I love the yin and yang of these two characters coming together and learning a little bit about each other and really what makes life worth it, what makes a quality life. And that’s being of service to other people.”
Like many Hallmark films, the movie shot in Vancouver, but Walker quickly notes that the location team was able to secure spots that play like different parts of the U.S. “I think the movie takes place in about five or six different states,” he says. One that even he was shocked to see replicated in British Columbia.
“For the Santa Fe, New Mexico, portion of the film, they found this old Spanish-style house out in the countryside,” he reveals. “This couple had traveled to Spain and they fell in love with it, so they bought this farmland and built this beautiful Spanish home….they were showing Ashley and I around their house, and it was kind of like a museum. They had amazing, amazing artifacts in there.” Sadly, a financial crisis eventually forced the couple to sell off portions of their property around the home, “so it’s this one Spanish villa in the middle of this modern Vancouver neighborhood. But once you crossed into this house, it was as if you were in Spain or Santa Fe, New Mexico.”
And speaking of authenticity, Walker is very open about how he brings more of his true self to his romantic leading-man roles after 12 years with Hallmark. “It’s not like you go into it saying, ‘I’m in a Hallmark movie, so I’m going to act a certain way.’ If you fast forward to where we are now, we’re so far beyond that.”
“When you do a Hallmark movie, you’re working for the brand, yes. And it’s a beautiful thing because they bring joy and happiness and all the things that these movies bring to people’s lives. But [with] The Curious Caterer, Nikki DeLoach and I approach it like we’re doing an HBO or a network television mystery. When I did Jingle Bell Run, it’s as if I’m doing a comedy on NBC or whatever. We’re able to do anything and everything now.”
“But the love story aspect has definitely not changed. If anything, I’ve adapted,” he observes. “You evolve as a human being…I’m a dad now to two boys. I have a 9-year-old and a 4-year-old. I’ve been with my wife for 20 years. I try to work on myself constantly, trying to be a better human being, a better parent, a better partner. And so I think that approaching these love stories, I now have more tools.”
Jingle Bell Run, Movie Premiere, November 16, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel
