There are a few elements that Hallmark Channel viewers can count on when they snuggle in to watch a holiday film — and the actors and actresses have come to expect the classic moments too.
While celebrating 2022’s Countdown to Christmas launch at Radio City Music Hall in New York City last month, Us Weekly caught up with several of the network’s stars, including Niall Matter, Nikki DeLoach, Paul Campbell, Jonathan Bennett and Rachel Boston, and asked their favorite “trope” from the Christmas movies. Options included — but weren’t limited to — a near-miss kiss (the main characters get interrupted right before locking lips) a Santa in disguise (the main character doesn’t realize they are interacting with St. Nick), hot chocolate, tree lightings and snow.
“We do about six near-miss kisses in The Holiday Sitter,” Bennett exclusively told Us Weekly. “We give everyone everything they want. And what’s so special about The Holiday Sitter is that yes, an LGBTQ+-led movie, but it’s not for just LGBTQ+ people. The Holiday Sitter is a movie for everyone just like Hallmark Channel is for everyone. And Christmas is for everyone.”
The Mean Girls actor stars alongside George Krissa in his 2022 movie, which premieres on December 11 — and features the network’s first leading gay couple in a Christmas movie ever.
“The Holiday Sitter was inspired by one of my favorite holiday movies, which is Uncle Buck. So I jokingly call it the gay Uncle Buck. it’s about my character, Sam, who comes home for the holidays to watch his niece and nephew and falls in love with the hot, hunky carpenter who’s building the addition on the house,” he explained.
Boston, for her part, also loves the infamous close-call lip lock.
“The near-miss kiss is always fantastic. I got to fall off a ladder and into Wes Brown’s arms,” the actress told Us of her 2019 movie, Check Inn to Christmas. “That’s always fun. That’s a good thing to do at Christmas to gently slip and be caught up a lovely Christmas man.”
This year, Boston appears in A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe alongside Victor Webster.
“It’s so fun,” she began. “It is a story of love but it’s also just finding your values and what you believe in this holiday season. But it’s a comedy and they really let us take it — Hallmark just gave us the reins to take it as far as we could.”
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