The Hallmark Channel is keeping the studio-system spirit alive, wrapped in a bunch of tinsel and placed under a tree or over a gazebo. When the holidays begin — in October, of course — Tyler Hynes, Andrew Walker, and Paul Campbell reemerge as the mainstays of a growing stable of actors who call the network an indefinite home. “Our faces have become synonymous with the idea of Christmas,” Campbell says. “If you want that feeling, and if you want us, you have to go to Hallmark.”
Hynes, Walker, and Campbell have been working on a near-exclusive basis with Hallmark for a combined quarter-century, and their friendship culminated in starring together in the channel’s tentpole 2022 film, Three Wise Men and a Baby. Despite becoming most pronounced during the holiday season — the network heavily promotes them, and other male leads, as “hunks of Hallmark” — their work spans genres and equinox, providing a rare type of stability that’s been phased out at Hollywood studios over the years. “As an actor,” Walker says, “I could not have any better-case scenario.”
But these actors’ affinity for the channel goes deeper than the promise of a steady paycheck. Talking with the trio on a recent morning near Central Park, all of them nodded to a sense of familiarity as central to the success of these films, which turn on a well-established formula of optimism and comfort. But just like people returning to their small towns for the holidays, that formula is capable of change and nuance, and Hynes, Walker, and Campbell have an insider’s perspective on what’s changed at the network over the years as well as what other evolutions might lie ahead. They also hope to do a spiritual sequel to Three Wise Men and a Baby, with three or four ideas currently in the mix “based on classic trios.” But they’re in no rush. They’re in it for the long haul.
Where were you all in your careers when you decided it would be a smart idea to start associating with Hallmark?
Andrew Walker: Mine was a little bit of a roundabout. I had started a juice company with my wife. I was going to take six months off acting and start the business, and about a year and a half later I was underwater. We were trying to figure out how to get our lives back. I had become very resentful toward my business because it had taken me away from my acting. I thought, Oh yeah, I’ll take some time off. I do a lot of work for ABC and whatnot. I’ll get it back in no time. I was wrong. But out of the blue, I got a call from my manager, and he said, “Hey, you got an offer to do a Hallmark movie. They want you to come up to Vancouver and shoot it.” And I was like, “A Hallmark movie? Don’t they make greeting cards?” I read the script and it was cute, so I jumped on an airplane and did my first movie and had a great time. The director was Gary Yates, who —
Paul Campbell: Gary is universally beloved, by the way.
AW: We’ve all done movies with him. It’s almost a rite of passage.
Tyler Hynes: I recently watched the Friends reunion, and the way they talk about James Burrows isn’t a bad comparison to Gary Yates.
PC: He creates a lot of Hallmark stars.
AW: But I did that movie, A Bride for Christmas, and it snowballed from there. I didn’t know the world I was entering into.
PC: I’d been living down in Los Angeles for about eight years, and in 2012, I moved back home to Vancouver. I wish I could say it wasn’t because I was broke, but I had gone broke living in L.A. despite a good role in Battlestar Galactica. I got an audition for a Hallmark movie. I never auditioned for one before because my representation unequivocally said from day one, “You’re not going to do Hallmark movies.” So my agent in Vancouver was going to pass on it, but I said, “Let me read it at least, I’m broke, come on.” So I read it and was like, This is one of the most fun scripts I’ve ever read. Why would I not want to do this? That was Winter Wonderland in 2013. After that, I said, “I’ll do as many as the channel throws out.”
TH: I’ve been doing this for about five years now. I’d gotten the call a few days before a film was going to start shooting, called It’s Christmas, Eve. As far as I know, LeAnn Rimes, for whatever reason, recommended me as her co-star. I don’t know how I ended up on that list or why. I don’t think Hallmark would have ever been stoked to hire me.
AW: He called me about it.
TH: I called him. I was like, I don’t know what this is; you’ve done 4 billion of these films.
AW: You had been asked about doing Hallmark another time, though, right? I remember that was the second time we had a talk about it.
TH: Yeah, you’re right. There had been outreach from Hallmark prior to that and it never materialized.
For any particular reason?
TH: There was a commercial I did, and that person wanted me to do a Hallmark movie. I had a meeting and it was super-strange. They were saying things like, “Once you do one, you’re in the family.” And I was like, “I don’t know about all that.”
AW: You’re like, “I don’t need a second family.”
Andrew, what was your advice to Tyler?
AW: I said, “Get ready to never stop working.” I knew his skills. He’s my wife’s second cousin, so I’ve known Tyler for 20 years. Canada has a small community of actors, especially East Coast actors, and Tyler’s a few years younger than me. I knew the impact Tyler had as an actor in Canada.
TH: Listen, I love romantic comedies. Notting Hill is one of my favorite movies ever. I think Hugh Grant is the most underrated actor of all time. If Hugh Grant and Meg Ryan ended up in a Hallmark movie, I’d be the happiest dude ever. I started to go, “I’m going to make these movies from where I want to make them.” That was yielding a reaction from the people I’m working with and the executives. There’s a large turnaround and a lot of moving parts; you don’t assume somebody would be that thoughtful or specific in their observations on something you’re doing. This is when I started to go, “Okay, this is an interesting place to explore and push the boundaries of what we can handle.”
A lot of people who watch these holiday films describe them with similar verbiage. They’re comforting. They’re set in fantasy worlds. They’re predictable. These sentiments are often expressed by the actors themselves. But I’d like to think there’s something deeper that goes beyond a brief, nice diversion on the small screen. What sort of catharsis are you providing for viewers that may not be apparent?
AW: Escapism is a big thing. There’s a reason why nurses and teachers are the primary viewers for these movies. I don’t think we go into it saying, “I’m going to be a certain type of person that’s unrealistic to the everyday person out there.” There’s the quintessential walk-and-talk, and there’s specific big beats and moments that we have to hit in these movies to make it “a Hallmark movie.” A lot of the actors are bringing in their life stories. They’re bringing in baggage. The perfect example is Three Wise Men and a Baby. Paul and Kimberley Sustad wrote this unbelievable script about real people going through real issues. We saw how much of an impact it made on the viewers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hugh Grant or Meg Ryan wanted to get involved one day. There are big actors out there now who are like, “Hey, what’s going on over here at Hallmark? I’m interested.”
PC: If you look across the board, what’s woven most deeply is the message of optimism. The happy ending is essential. There has to be eternal hope alive. The reason people tune in is because they know how these things end. They tune in because they want to see the kiss. Regardless of circumstance, we’re telling stories about relatable characters. They could be you or me or anybody, and there’s always a message of hope at the end. There’s so much pain and suffering, and there’s so much despair. The escapism is going into this world where everything will ultimately turn out okay, regardless of how it starts.
TH: It’s so rare in any business, or any corner of entertainment, to make something that people want to consume. We’ve made a formula that works. I think it’s the consistency of the journey you’re going to be on. I watch certain directors who I love and I know for that same consistency. We’ve created a brand around a certain kind of experience of a genre that was being left by the wayside. What’s interesting is that Hallmark has created its sort of own subgenre, which now Hollywood is trying to impersonate.
What is that subgenre?
PC: The genre is feeling. And it’s a feeling you can’t articulate. These movies are deceptively complicated. Everyone goes, “Oh, what simple, cheesy stories.” They’re not. They’re really complex in their simplicity. They’re hard to write, they’re hard to act, and they’re hard to create the feeling over and over again that everyone tunes in for. There have been a lot of actors over the years who come in, do one movie, and don’t come back because they don’t quite get it.
TH: Having done the amount of movies all three of us have done, the goal then becomes, how do we maintain that nucleus of a feeling? Where are the areas in which you can push to create new experiences so it doesn’t become too redundant?
AW: That takes a lot of years to accomplish. Some movies have sat on the shelf for seven or eight years before they’re made, and they’ve gone through so many different hands. It’s the nuance. Hallmark has gone through a lot of different variations of what its “aesthetics” are. There was a period where we couldn’t be in plaid clothing or we couldn’t be eating in a scene.
Paul, you’ve transitioned to a dual role as a writer and actor. How do you balance the network’s edict for writing these movies while trying to expand what they’re capable of doing?
PC: In the last three or four years since management has changed at the top, there’s been a slightly new broadening of direction. Three Wise Men and a Baby was a big swing. It was something they’d never done before. The idea of putting three male leads together in a movie was a little scary, because they didn’t know how that would be received. As a writer, there’s no defined formula, but intuitively, we all understand what the thing is. I understand the feeling we’re trying to provoke. More and more, we’re telling stories about people who have more damage and conflict. It’s not as glossy as it once was. Then on the opposite side, the humor comes with the tragedy. The more broken, hurt, or pain someone is feeling, the funnier you can make a script. Comedy only comes from pain, so the more pain there is, there’s more humor. It’s a great balance.
We try things all the time that get edged back. My character in Three Wise Men and a Baby had an anxiety disorder, and we wanted to have him taking his anxiety medication front and center of the camera. We put it in the script and were sure it was going to get walked back, because it feels like it’s a little too hard to watch somebody having to deal in the moment with something that’s a painful struggle. To see him actually take the pills means you have to acknowledge that his disorder is a real thing. If he doesn’t take the pills, you can kind of go, “I don’t know. He’s got some stuff going on.” Hallmark said, “Yeah, absolutely. We’d like to see that. That’s a big part of his journey.” I don’t know if three or four years ago that would’ve made it into the edit, if I’m being honest.
That said, there are still some restrictions. I can’t write “sucks.” I can write “jerk,” which is pretty fun and opens some doors.
AW: My young kids would say “sucks” is a bad word. Excuse me — it’s the S-word.
PC: So, I have to do “stinks.” Now I just lean older with word choices. I’ll write “rats” or “jeepers.” I wrote a joke about marrying a cat in a recent script. There was a joke where my character went, “Marriage is different for everybody. Love is different. I love my cat, but I wouldn’t marry my cat.” And then another character goes, “Yeah, because of the legal red tape.” Hallmark told me, “We can’t tell a joke about the only reason he’s not marrying his cat is because legally he can’t marry his cat.” They walked that one one back. That was a good joke, though.
What other sort of meaningful narrative progression do you think could be accomplished in the near future?
TH: There’s no reason why you can’t represent more versions of love. I think the network feels the same way.
AW: I think an imperfect ending, for sure, could happen. I did a movie this year called Christmas Island, and at the end of the movie our characters were like, “We don’t know how this is going to work, but we’ll try to make it work.” She goes off as a pilot, and I have to stay on the island. It wasn’t your typical Hallmark ending to a movie, because there’s still an element of uncertainty in the air.
PC: Though we can’t underestimate the power of the happy ending and the kiss at the end. I think the audience really does tune in for that and it’s part of the message of hope. We’re telling romantic comedies and it needs a satisfying ending. People may disagree. Without the kiss, movies do lose something. You can still have this message of hope, like, “I’ll be okay on my own and single. I’m fine; I’ve found my peace.” But it’s not as satisfying of an ending. You go, “Ah, that was okay, but I really wish …” We all just want to see that kiss, right? I think it’s better when that connection is made.
TH: Maybe at first you go, like, “Yeah, that’s realistic to life.” And then you leave and think, “Wait, what? We get it, life sucks.”
AW: Yeah, why did I tune in for this? We do want to see people end up together.
TH: This is the tightrope walk we’ve seen Hallmark try to work with. Other people have said the same thing and suggested, “Okay, let’s start trying to be a little brave,” and sometimes it’s met with discomfort.
PC: One of the main things that’s changing is we’re getting away from some of the broader, more fantastical character arc elements. For example, we’re not constantly saving the community center or getting that promotion. The emotional arc of the character is becoming more important. There’s something equally satisfying in just realizing that you’re okay being you at the end. Everything is okay. Just having somebody hold your hand and say, “Hey, it’s okay just being you” is actually a satisfying and more relatable arc for people. I don’t know, people seem to be generally a lot more depressed and down these days. I’m not going to go off on a tangent about social media, but I think it’s killing us. I think it’s slowly poisoning our entire population.
TH: In my next movie, I play a social-media agent. I wish I was joking. The sentiment that you just described, well, I’m trying to make that be the case.
You three have been with Hallmark for long stretches of time. Andrew has the longest tenure, starting in 2012. So when you heard Candace Cameron Bure declare that Hallmark has become “basically a completely different network” because of leadership changes, and departed because of it, how did you all interpret her comment?
AW: I think it was just a good excuse to cover up an opportunity she had somewhere else. Whether she thought she had it less at Hallmark because she’s an executive now over at Great American Family, I don’t know. That’s the way I took it.
TH: I can’t imagine how complicated or nuanced her relationship was or wasn’t. All I know is, for us, it’s very simple why we’re here. We know what we’re doing. I don’t want to speak for you guys, but I certainly know why I’m here.
PC: Feel free to speak for me.
AW: I love it when you speak for me.
TH: That was the intention from the beginning. We want to see the same things you’re talking about — diversity of storytelling. Because things have to evolve.
AW: Hallmark has created a culture that’s a trickle-down effect from the top. You get somebody like Lisa Hamilton at the top, who replaced Bill Abbott, who’s now making these choices that are affecting the network. The formula is pretty sound. I don’t think we need to sit here and go, “Oh, one network is better than the next.”
So none of you view any other network as direct competition?
AW: I don’t know who else can do what we do. Even if we have shortcomings and perhaps other places do certain things better or have more money, I don’t know how our style gets duplicated somewhere else in quite the same way. It’s like comparing apples to oranges.
PC: I think the word competition implies there are viewers going elsewhere because somebody else is doing what Hallmark is doing. If you look at the numbers this season, viewership is up, so it’s a big playground. There’s a lot of space for people to produce and tell similar stories. But I don’t think there’s competition. Hallmark is the only place that does specifically what Hallmark does.
AW: I’m not competing with Paul’s movie. I’m not competing with Tyler’s movie. Individual movies aren’t competing with other individual movies, which can’t be said at other networks.
PC: Hallmark has created something that resembles an old studio system. I don’t know if there’s anywhere else where the same actors appear year after year to create that familiarity. For the actors that work in Christmas movies at Hallmark, we don’t make Christmas movies anywhere else.
AW: I want Paul’s face for Christmas. That’s all I want.
PC: Wait, what does that mean?
AW: You both are on my Christmas tree.
Lifetime will be airing its first holiday-movie sex scene this year. Will there ever be a point where Hallmark depicts intimacy beyond a kiss?
TH: I’m in.
PC: He’s going to be the test subject.
TH: Two people waking up in bed together I think might be possible.
PC: People talk about how there’s a “safe” feeling to the programming. I hate using the term family-friendly, because it has a lot of negative connotations.
TH: Same with safe. That gets tossed around too much.
PC: This is why I go back to feeling. We can’t quantify what it is, but I don’t think we necessarily need to see two people in bed to tell that story in the best way. Why do we need to tell that part of the story? If you want to see that, you can go to Lifetime. To make our movies sing, we don’t have to see intimacy beyond a kiss. They still resonate strongly.
AW: I also think it would take away from building tension in the movie if that ever happened.
PC: There’s an innocence and a sweetness.
TH: As much as we want to try to be diverse in some of the stories we tell, people do take ownership of every individual movie. I wouldn’t want to do a sex scene just for the sake of itself.
Billy Joel has said that when he begins to have difficulty hitting notes, he’s going to stop his Madison Square Garden residency. His last show is next summer. What would signal for you all that your time at the network is coming to an end?
PC: When I stop being excited about it, because then I can’t bring anything to the project. When the magic goes away for me, it’s probably time to hang it up.
AW: When my kids need me at some point in their lives or if I’m going to travel. I have these ideas that I want to just leave for a year and travel the world.
PC: Your kids do need you. I just want you to know, they do need you now.
TH: I’m getting texts from your wife right now. She’s like, “Where’s Andrew?”
AW: It’s really out of our control. At least, I see it that way.
TH: That’s an interesting question. You’re going to make me start thinking about that.
AW: Uh-oh.
TH: It would probably be what Paul said — if I start showing up on set and I start to feel like this is no longer immersive or interesting. If it ever gets pretty unpleasant, I’d be out. If the vibes go toxic, I would leave.
PC: He has an aversion to bad vibes.
AW: I like sick waves and sick vibes, bruh.
TH: As soon as that fucking wave starts to give out, man, I’m gone.