Lolly Christmas Exclusive: Interview with Andrew Walker

Lolly Christmas Exclusive: Interview with Andrew Walker Andrew Walker in MERRY & BRIGHT (Photo: Crown Media)

One—or many—could say that Andrew Walker is the ‘Prince of Hallmark,’ and that might be why he has not one, but two new Christmas movies spanning both of Hallmark’s top networks this holiday season!  I chatted with Andrew about Merry & Bright, in which he co-stars with Jodie Sweetin and Sharon Lawrence, as well as his surprising second festive film alongside Ashley Greene; his outlook on acting, holiday traditions, and lots more!

Lolly Christmas

Your new movie, “Merry and Bright”, premieres this weekend on Hallmark for the 10th Anniversary of Countdown to Christmas. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Sure! It’s about a girl (Jodie Sweetin) who inherits a candy cane company from her grandfather, and the business has not been doing too well; she’s been struggling to keep it afloat and to grow it.  I represent an investment group that comes in to turn the business around.  I’ve been assigned by the investors to go in to, basically, just dismantle things and help her grow the business, and obviously she’s a very proud woman and she’s a very proud business owner, and she doesn’t feel like she needs my help so, she’s kind of giving me some pushback on that. Ultimately, we end up finding a common ground and, along the way, we end up falling for each other.

I’m already excited!

(Laughs) Yeah, it’s just a really good movie. You know, obviously, Jodie Sweetin is like a sitcom veteran from all the years on “Full House” and “Fuller House”; she’s also very smart at comedy, and she’s just great at making scripts, you know, be better — be the best versions of what they could possibly be. She had her directorial debut on “Fuller House” just a few episodes ago so, she comes at it with a very open mind …with a very ‘technician’ kind of mind. You know what I mean? So, it was amazing learning from her and just being able to work together in collaborating to make our scenes the best they could possibly be.

I was going to ask you what it was like working with her! I’ve watched her on television since I was young as well.

Yeah, no kidding! (Laughs) For everyone, ‘Steph Tanner’ is a household name.

Lolly Christmas Exclusive: Interview with Andrew Walker

Sweetin and Walker in MERRY & BRIGHT.
(Photo: Crown Media)

You also worked with Sharon Lawrence on this film, and she’s fantastic.

I did–and we stayed friends, Sharon and I, since that project. She’s amazing. She’s a powerhouse!

You know when you hear the announcement of a cast for a movie, and you think ‘Oh, that sounds exciting!’…? When I heard that you were doing a movie with Jodie and Sharon, it immediately became my number one pick of the movie I couldn’t wait for.

Ahh, no way!

Yeah! You can just tell when it’s going to be great. I have this thing with the chemistry, obviously, and sometimes when I see a movie I think, ‘Oh, it’s good; the story is good, the actors are good…’ but, there’s something about movies where the chemistry will…transport you! You’ll forget you’re even watching a movie, and that’s how I feel with your movies. So, when I knew you were working with Sharon and Jodie …I just thought, ‘This could be so good’.

I appreciate that.  It was such a treat for me too. I feel the same way… when I’m getting these offers to work on these Hallmark movies, I think the most interesting thing for me, or the most exciting point of it is like, ‘Hey, Who are they attaching now as the lead actress?’ It’s like a chemistry project; you just put people together and sometimes the greatest people with the greatest names…we could end up having the worst chemistry…it just doesn’t fit.

Absolutely.

So, with this one, I was really excited — and then you question it for a second like, ‘Is it going to be what I think it’s gonna be?’  Hopefully it is, you know, hopefully no one comes on set with attitude and, in this case, nobody did, and it was just great. I mean…it obviously takes, as easy as it may be, building chemistry or like, ultimately, building chemistry with somebody–it always takes a few days, regardless. You know you’re going to have to kiss this person, you know you’re going to have to be intimate, you know you’re going to have to open up that vulnerable side of yourself to that person.

Right, it’s not a switch…you have to feel it out.

Yeah!  Like how does it feel just staring into this person’s eyes that you’ve never met before? (Laughs) The ‘trust factor’ has to be there immediately, you know?

Acting is almost like a choreographed dance.

It is, yeah–actually, an acting coach said to me a long time ago…he compared it to a boxing match because you’re battling. It was actually a great analogy because your insides are bouncing, you know, you have nerves, you have excitement, and you also have to take into consideration what’s happening in the scene–where you are, and if you’re battling weather that day, and it’s supposed to be hot outside or, in our case a lot of the time, it’s supposed to be cold out but, it’s super warm when you’re shooting these Christmas movies because we shoot them sometimes in July…we shoot them sometimes in October, which I just did the last one in October but, basically, a boxing match–you have to be very calm on the inside but, yet it’s a very physical sport where you have to throw punches but, you also have to be very calm…your shoulders can’t be up at your ears.

So, I thought that was a very interesting analogy where you have to be calm but, you also have to be ready to throw a line back where you might not feel that comfortable in that scenario, or the line might not make sense necessarily in context of the big picture but, it’s where it’s supposed to go…and you’re supposed to make sense of it and… just like a jab, you know what I mean? If someone opens their chin, you gotta throw that jab. I thought that was interesting…

Yeah, if you have any kind of awkwardness, it’s going to show.

Absolutely. Oh, yeah.

Is it a selective process choosing your Hallmark movies? I’ve always wondered about this because, we know that Hallmark is going to roll out at least thirty Christmas movies each year, are you given a set of scripts to pick from …or do they approach you with a particular film?

Yeah, yeah, you know I’m, fortunately, at the point now where I’m nineteen movies in with them and I do get a script, and I get to read through it, and say ‘Hey, do you want to take this one? Do you want to wait for the next one?’  A lot of the time now, just with my family and other responsibilities I have in L.A.; I have a small business in L.A. that my wife and I started years ago–a juice company [Little West], so I have to take all of that into consideration. I’ll pick and choose based on location and script, the people I’m working with and all of that stuff, you know…nine and half times out of ten, I usually take the project no matter what because, it’s great–Hallmark has a ‘No A–hole’ policy so, usually I’m working with really great people…people that reciprocate the same kind of set mentality but, all in all, I do get to pick and choose–and it’s really great that I’m able to do that right now in my career.

I don’t often see actors on the network do more than movie for the holidays in one season, and you’re doing two! Normally when I see it, it’s the “Christmas in Evergreen” or the “When Calls the Heart’ movies because, essentially, they’re already part of the cast in a continuing story–but, you have one coming to Hallmark Movies & Mysteries coming too–“Christmas On My Mind”.

I do, yeah!

How did that come about? Did you know you were going to do two, or was it last-minute?

I had no idea and, to be honest, I thought that the second one that I got–the “Christmas On My Mind” that I just came back from shooting, I thought that was a Christmas movie for next year. (Laughs) Up until..Day 3 of shooting, I was like ‘So, when is this going to air next year?’, and then my co-star, Ashley Greene, said ‘Andrew, it’s for this Christmas,’ and I’m like ‘What?! I just did a Christmas movie …are people going to get sick of my face?!’ (Laughs) So, that came kind of as a surprise to me as well, and then when our network producer, Marybeth Sprows, came from Hallmark up to Vancouver for a few days–she’s actually the one who told me that I was the only actor in Hallmark history that was hired to do two Christmas movies [in one season].

Yeah! Like I said, the only time I see that is with “When Calls the Heart”, and that’s because it’s the cast from the television show but, I never see two original movies [from one actor]. I think it’s great!

Yeah, I’m very pleasantly surprised! MaryBeth is the executive at Hallmark that was kind of the point person for all of us, and it’s based off Denise Hunter’s book.

That doesn’t take place in the winter, I believe. It’s going to be interesting to see how that’s turned into a festive story…

Exactly, it was actually from this producer–four years ago, she got the rights to this, not MaryBeth, but, Maura–that’s her name, she got the rights to this–Maura Dunbar; she’s a producer and has been in the game for thirty plus years, and has done a few projects now with Denise Hunter; she’s adapted a few of her books, and she got a hold of this book four years ago and it’s gone through many different writers hands and, finally, Maura said ‘You know what, I’m going to try to speed things up here and make it a little more specific and give it a time of year,’ and so she’s the one who pitched it to Hallmark and said ‘Why don’t we see if we can turn this into a Christmas movie?,’ and then Hallmark immediately responded to it…and that’s how it became what it is today.

It sounds like such a cool story–I can’t wait to see this one too.

It’s great, and my co-star in this one is just so awesome–and it was her first time doing a Hallmark movie.

Yeah! I mean, I know her from the “Twilight” movies–it’s going to be fun to see her in a Hallmark movie.

Yeah, everyone knows her from those movies! She’s a first time Hallmark actress, and she did an incredible job I mean, that character…she pulled it off and made it look very easy but, basically, her character pieces together her entire life.  It starts with her hitting her head at the beginning of the movie; she’s holding her wedding dress, and she doesn’t understand when she comes to…she basically thinks she’s in her life two years before so, she’s erased two years of her life. She has this retrograde amnesia, and she comes to my restaurant that I own and run, and she just walks through the door and I’m like ‘What are you doing here? Why are you here? We broke up two years ago… what’s happening?’ and she’s holding a wedding dress thinking she’s on her way to getting married to me. She goes back home to Portland, and she tells her fiancé, because she’s getting married to a different guy, and she tells her fiancé ‘Look, I have to go back to my hometown and piece together my life–I feel like I’m in limbo. I need to just work on myself,’ and so she goes back to her hometown and we end up reuniting… and you probably have a hunch of what comes next… (Laughs)

Lolly Christmas Exclusive: Interview with Andrew Walker

(Photo: Crown Media)

I love that plot!

It’s a cool plot, right?!

Yes!

Ashley pulled it off so well.

That’s the type of Christmas movie I look forward to…and, I love when you do bridal movies! (Laughs)

(Laughs) Yeah, I know, I know.

You’re always a groom! (Laughs)

I’m always the groom, yeah! (Laughs) I get married multiple times a year, it’s great.

You have a nice catalog of Christmas movies but, you’ve also done many more for Hallmark.  Who is someone you haven’t worked with yet that you’d like to or, perhaps, someone you’ve worked with for a non-Christmas movie that you’d like to re-team up with? I loved the two films you did with Bethany Joy Lenz!

I mean, honestly, she is a big stand-out person for me that I’ve worked with. I met Bethany on a TV show that I had worked on called “Maybe It’s Me” like, fourteen…fifteen years ago—actually, seventeen years ago!

I remember that show!

You remember that show?!

Yes, it was shortly before she did “One Tree Hill”!  I remember that…

Yeah, exactly! I played this brother named Rick Stage, and I had this really high hair and my whole life was about my hair and my image–I was a really shallow guy but, Fred Willard played my dad in it, and we had these great scenes; he’s the best comedic acting class that I’ve ever been to–watching him work. So, when Joy came on one episode of that, and I remember looking at her work and I was like, ‘Wow, this girl is really good at what she does!’, and we had small talk or whatever, and she finished the episode… and just through the acting grapevine, we crossed paths many times throughout the years, and then her and I did a Christmas movie for the Lifetime network [“Snowed Inn Christmas”].

I love that movie.

Yeah, thanks! It was immediate chemistry, you know, her and I. I feel like when an actress is really open to putting the work in outside of our days on that we’re on set… we met up the first weekend that we got there, we started cutting up the script a little bit, giving our own spin to it, and then when we jumped on set…we just had fun, you know? She does a lot of adlibbing and she’s just a very open person.

I was going to comment on that! Your banter almost feels like it’s unscripted…

Yeah, we definitely tried to make it as fluid and fluent as possible… and a lot of that is the director as well, you know, the director allowed us to do that and it was the fourth movie I had worked with the director on–his name is Gary Yates; he’s in Winnipeg, and he’s a very supportive director when it comes to letting the actors be creative, and so…I think it’s like, going back to earlier, every acting gig is like a chemistry project. It could just be one thing; the actors could have great chemistry but, the director might not–it might just pollute the vibe, or a producer on set might be asserting themselves a little too much to allow people to kind of breathe, and let the project breathe, and let the director do what he does.

I imagine that can be stifling if you feel like you can’t be natural in what you’re doing.

Definitely. I’m a very sensitive person to energies and stuff too; I think that’s been a big thing of mine in auditions where I feel like I’d go in and be very prepared, and then there would be one person in the room that’s just throwing me, and it destroys my whole vibe.

I totally understand. You could be on an all-time high, and then just a shift in the mood and it will bring you down, and then you can’t get in the same mindset again.

Exactly.

So, you would work with her [Bethany Joy Lenz] as much as possible then? (Laughs)

Oh, man, yeah! We were talking about possibly about… you know, how do we get our own TV show started?

Well, that would be great!

I know, I know–it would be great. It would be amazing.

Switching gears just a little bit outside of Christmas movies. What are some of your holiday family traditions?

My family traditions–I don’t know if you’ve probably heard me say this in an interview before, but my family is really big into music; my Mom is an incredible pianist, my Aunt is a retired elementary school music teacher, my Uncle is an incredible trumpet player–he lived in London for a bit, and then he came back to Montreal and I’d go to Jazz Fest with my Uncle and he knew all the musicians, and he gets us into all the jazz clubs and stuff. My two cousins on my Aunt’s side, they are incredible musicians–one is an Opera singer and the other one did some Off-Broadway stuff and was working really hard to try and be on Broadway, and she married a singer that she met on tour. So, our family gets together and, we eat and then we, basically, create our own music for four hours in the evening.

I think also, geographically, a lot of my family traditions are based around living in Montreal…coming back to Montreal, and we have really cold winters up here, obviously, and a lot of my holiday traditions are playing at the outdoor rinks with my buddies–some hockey, if it’s cold enough…and eating all the traditional foods that we have in Montreal. I always come back and have to have rotisserie chicken from this incredible place called Chalet Bar-B-Q, which is the best barbecue chicken that I’ve ever had in my entire life; they have the greatest fries and gravy. So, I come back and I have that…so, it’s just like eating and hockey…

Lolly Christmas Exclusive: Interview with Andrew Walker

Walker in a scene from MERRY & BRIGHT.
(Photo: Crown Media)

It sounds so nice!

Yeah, it’s great! Also, my In-Laws are amazing people and we stay with them when we’re here, and they might make coffee every single morning for us…and they’re big coffee snobs (Laughs), and so are we…but, they make great cups of coffee!

Now, having a four-year-old as well, family traditions are all based around him. It’s not about us anymore and gifts, it’s about him…and not giving too much to him, you know, we’re pretty strict on just having the right gifts–it’s not about the amount of gives that you give.

Well, then he’ll just grow up being more excited about the time of the year than the gifts.

Exactly!

That’s how I am–that’s how my family is. Sometimes it’s like ‘Let’s not even do gifts this year, let’s just buy more decorations!’ (Laughs)

Yeah! (Laughs)  I actually love that…a lot of my friends parents have traditions where they would not give any gifts, starting at about age fifteen-years-old, they wouldn’t give any gifts and then everyone would chip in to put money towards a cottage up North, so they’d all stay at a cottage and they would just have family time up there.

Like you said, you’re from Montreal–and I’m in New Jersey, and we have a debate in the U.S. on whether we should start the Christmas festivities before or after Thanksgiving but, you’re from Canada where Thanksgiving is celebrated in October.  Do you wait until late November, or are you like us ‘Hallmarkies’ and get an early start?

It’s great because I kind of get a bit of both. We go back and celebrate American Thanksgiving, and we were here for Canadian Thanksgiving so, we get a little bit of the best of both worlds. I love how the day after American Thanksgiving, it’s like full holiday mode–you know, full Christmas holiday mode; it feels festive so, I’ve kind of conformed to the American way. (Laughs)

Speaking of an early holiday start, I’m going to see you at Christmas Con!

Oh, great! I was going to ask, if you’re in New Jersey, if you’re going to be there!

Yes, I am going to be there! What an exciting event–this is so long overdue.

I know! I can’t believe no one has done it before.

Will this be your first time meeting fans of these movies in such an environment?

Yes, it is!  I always sporadically meet people when they come up to me at the airport or just random places around the U.S. and Canada, for that matter, and people come up to me and say ‘Hey! I’ve seen your Christmas movies’ and all that but, I’ve never been in one place that has all the fans in one condensed amount of time.

It’s going to be so exciting.

It’s going to be great!

What’s your all-time favorite Christmas movie?

“Home Alone”–easily!

I always teeter between that one and “The Santa Clause” with Tim Allen.

Oh, yeah “The Santa Clause” is good too. I also really like “Elf”!

I have one more question to ask you.  You said that you film these movies in the summer…you film them in October…how do you get in the mindset of it being Christmas when everyone around you is either carving pumpkins or getting ready to go to the beach?

It’s movie magic! You step on set and they do it up as a ‘winter wonderland’, and all the lights…these set decorators, they’re under a lot of pressure to really get the magical feel right. The expectation is high!  They put their all into it. As you’ve seen in the movies, the set decorations are beautiful so, immediately, you’re throwing on a turtleneck and a winter jacket …and you just imagine it’s that time of year! (Laughs) There’s also the snow too! They’ve got fake snow–they do everything they possibly can to make it as whimsical and magical looking as possible, and you really just fall into it.

That sounds like the ultimate fun day at work.

It’s so much fun! It’s amazing because when you look around at the world, at politics and wars in different countries, and all of this stuff that’s going on in the world–the jobs that people go to. Some of my friends that are on huge network TV shows, they’re going into work and they’re getting strangled in episodes, they’re rape victims, they’re shooting people up–it’s a lot of violence. No wonder Hallmark is the fastest growing network in the country…people want nice stories.

That’s why we started LollyChristmas.com. It’s a wholesome time of year, and when everything is going on and people are stressed every day, it’s something you can just relax and enjoy. Even if it’s just for two hours a day, you can watch a Hallmark movie or just look at Christmas content…

Completely.  I think, for me, I feel so honored and blessed that I’m able to have this and continue to build this relationship with Hallmark, and have the ability to leave every once in a while and jump on set, and just have so much fun–and kind of live in this figment world of perfection. Also, to be able to try and bring people into my world as well…to try and bring people on this journey that my character is going on. It’s a lot of fun…it’s like a dream life.

I say it to my wife all the time, I think every day you have to give thanks and, for us, I feel like my career, my health, and my family …everything that I have is just a really…I feel very, very blessed, and Hallmark has been a big component to my being in the position that I’m in. They’ve really supported my family.  Even our business, and I’ve said this to Bill Abbott, President and CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, at events, I said ‘Bill, you don’t understand how much you’ve helped my family and my business.’ Like, honestly, if it wasn’t for Hallmark… I would be doing Hallmark gigs and I would come back from a job, and I would put a large portion of my paycheck into our business just to keep it alive, and keep it growing… up until the point where it is now, we’ve been around for seven years but, that lasting power was given by Hallmark’s hiring of me over and over again for projects.

It’s a blessing.

Yeah! I know. It’s unbelievable.

Contentment.  I was saying that to someone the other day… contentment is probably one of the greatest joys; if you’re content with your family and your job and your health…isn’t that what everyone wants?

Yes, it is.

Lolly Christmas
It was a wonderful experience talking with Andrew! Make sure you tune in to watch him in “Merry & Bright” on November 2nd at 8pm/7c on Hallmark Channel – and catch him in “Christmas On My Mind” when it premieres December 19th at 9pm/8c on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, part of Miracles of ChristmasStay Merry!

Stay merry!

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