Luke Macfarlane and Tyler Hynes on Leading Hallmark into a New Era of Storytelling

Hallmark’s holiday movie marathon and Comic-Con have long shared the month of July, but strangely, they’ve never combined forces — until this year!

Ahead of Hallmark’s very first Hallstars panel, network leading men Luke Macfarlane (Catch Me If You Claus, Taking a Shot at Love) and Tyler Hynes (Three Wise Men and a Baby, The Groomsmen) sat down with reporters during a roundtable interview at San Diego Comic-Con.

From a new home renovation show to a potential sci-fi Christmas script, the two actors delved into the magic of making Hallmark movies. (You can watch the full video below.)

Among roles on hit TV shows like Killjoys and Platonic, Macfarlane has been a fixture of Hallmark for over ten years now.

“I’ve been with Hallmark for a long time,” the actor agreed, and he has no plans to leave any time soon. “What I believe is so unique about Hallmark is their willingness to work with who the authentic person is.”

Like many of us looking in on the success of the holiday channel, he, too, was initially a skeptic of the network’s authenticity. “When I started, I didn’t know that. I did not know what the brand was supposed to be,” Macfarlane said.

Macfarlane went on to say that what he finds “cool” about his partnership with the network is that “they want to see you” as an actor and grow with you creatively.

“You rarely get to work with anybody for more than two years, if your show is fortunate. So to work with a company for 10 years, it’s also a testament to what Hallmark does — they work with you. What else are you interested in? What else do you want to do? And who else are you? I will go further and say, as a gay man, I think it was very easy to stereotype Hallmark as a place that said only certain people are welcome, and that is not the case.”

So when a dream opportunity came along for Macfarlane to host his very own home renovation show, he felt at home with the idea of bringing Home Is Where the Heart Is to Hallmark.

“I think that’s a big part of the brand is like, ‘Who are you authentically?’ And I truly am a woodworker and a maker and someone who’s always loved homes. So when this opportunity came along, of all the brands that I felt would trust me to sort of make something that felt like real and honest, I was like, ‘Absolutely, would love to work with them.'”

“I love doing it, and I still want to act, but this is very much a part of my personal self that I’m so excited to share with everybody.”

Watch the full interview with Luke Macfarlane and Tyler Hynes:

Hynes was just as excited to see Macfarlane make the move from movie star to home-renovation host and asked the actor how the series turned out.

“It turned out exactly as I wanted it to turn out,” Macfarlane responded. “It was really fun and hard — as you [Hynes] can attest, summertime in Atlanta is a little bit like wearing winter coats in Vancouver in the winter. So it was very hot. There was a lot of sweating. Now I perpetually have to have a little tank top underneath. It comes off between takes.”

“I always was a furniture maker. That was the passion. I thought that would be my life, and then that turned into home renovation. I said, if I can build a chair, I can frame a wall.”

“Was it that easy of a transition?” Hynes asked. “No,” Macfarlane laughed.

Macfarlane did tease that he has another Hallmark movie coming up: “I’ve been told there’s a movie coming up soon, and that’s all I can say.”

Nonetheless, the two leading men pondered what they would like to do next with Hallmark, and Macfarlane mentioned Hynes’ ensemble work on the Three Wise Men and The Groomsmen franchises.

“I want to be in the franchise that gets boys together,” Macfarlane confessed. “I’m a big fan of [Paul] Campbell, so I’d like to be a Wise Man.”

When Hynes’ guest star role on an episode of Star Trek: Discovery came up, Macfarlane (who is a proud Trekkie) also mentioned he would love to explore that genre through a Hallmark lens: “Maybe a sci-fi Christmas would be a fun place to go. Or people that love sci-fi that also love Christmas, because I feel like there’s kind of an overlap.”

“A Sci-Fi Christmas!” Hynes agreed. “It’s a great idea, you should 100% do it because you love sci-fi that much, even if it just takes place in another dimension or something.”

“And then it’s all about people that are looking for escape,” Macfarlane added. “We could pitch it together. I’m actually kind of serious. There’s something there.”

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Stream Luke Macfarlane and Tyler Hynes’ Hallmark projects on Hallmark+.

Check out our full coverage of San Diego Comic-Con, including panel recaps, news, and interviews, here!

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