Photo by Hallmark/ABC/Erik Heinila
The holidays are a time for feel good movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol. And the upcoming Hallmark Hall of Fame offering Christmas with Holly is the latest in a longstanding tradition of flicks that remind us how fortunate we are during this special time of year. In a recent exclusive interview, the movie’s star Sean Faris talked about the gifts he received working on the project.
In Christmas with Holly, Sean plays a single man who suddenly becomes a dad to his niece when her parents unexpectedly die. He explained that he formed a special bond with the twins who played the role, Josie and Lucy Gallina, saying, “They are just a ball of sunshine. It can be raining, pouring cats and dogs, and they’ll walk in and just make it all stop. It’s like a sunny day when they walk into the room. I don’t have enough words to express how much I really enjoy those two little human beings. Those two little rugrats are just fantastic.”
As a result, he found that performing with the young actors made his work a little easier. As he recalled, “They had some moments when we were filming, it made my heart skip a beat. I couldn’t help but react to them in the most honest, natural way with ease.”
But it all made saying goodbye when production wrapped all the more difficult. Sean recounted, “It’s the first time I’ve ever truly missed somebody when I was leaving them on set. The very last day I looked at my girlfriend and said, ‘This is the first time that my heart hurts that I know I’m not going to see these two for a couple of months.’ I really miss them and I love them to death. I hope that I get to see them grow throughout their futures and their lives. I love their mom, their family. They’re awesome all the way around.”
As in any good holiday movie, Sean’s character Mark also finds romance. He talked about the joy of working with his onscreen love interest played by Eloise Mumford. Sean recounted, “I would sit opposite her in these scenes and just see how naturally gifted she was. And it made me want to go home and work even harder and come back the next day and be there with her through and through in the scenes and to really share moments with her because she is so wonderfully gifted. And I know she works very hard but also there’s just some kind of a natural talent and ease that she brings in every scene that it really blew me away. I think she’s probably the best female actor that I’ve ever worked with in my life.”
While he’ll leave the project with new blessings, he also believes that audiences take something away from Christmas with Holly. Sean remarked, “I hope that they can see that when there’s times of struggle and hard times that you can go through in life, you have the odds against you and people may not believe in you. But as long as you believe in yourself and you stay true to what you’re trying to do and it’s for the right reasons, I feel that you’ll find out who you really are as a person in the best way.”
And he wants to remind viewers to remember that they aren’t in it alone. He continued, “You can bring family and support and love together through these hard times and get through it as one, as a group, rather than just carrying struggles all by yourself. I know that Mark takes on a lot of it but at the end of the day he leads by example. And the others take note and they look inside themselves and they realize what they need to do to support this situation. And I hope that people will look at that and maybe realize when they see someone else going through a hard time, how their support can help them.”
Tune in to Christmas with Holly when it debuts on Sunday, December 9 at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. Central on ABC.
For related stories check out:
Blessed with So Many Christmas Carols
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