[ad_1]
Christmas magic is alive and well on the Hallmark Channel. In the middle of the network Countdown to Christmas programming, ET spoke with Samantha Herman, who wrote it Christmas Islandone of 31 original films premiering this season, and she revealed what elements make a perfect holiday love story.
“I think you need to have a great meeting, cute. It doesn’t matter if they’re former friends, former lovers, already know each other, or meeting again, but that moment has to come,” Herman told ET. “You have to let the leads collide, then come together and pull apart again, just to keep that momentum going and keep the tension going, rather than everything just going smoothly. I think that’s important. You have to have a couple have charged moments of chemistry – chaste chemistry – but still keep that tension going. I like to have a kiss halfway through if they let me.”
Then, Herman said, as the film nears its end, viewers know the leads will “have a moment of breakup, and after the commercial they’ll work together again.”
“[I try to] just make that situation a little more realistic, a little more dynamic. I’ve been guilty of going back to the source of the misunderstanding, or the overhearing and the misinterpretation, and we’re just trying to diversify that and make it more exciting,” she said of herself and others at the network.” make the leads themselves more realistic, less cookie-cutter, more quirks, more mistakes, just more grounded, real people with more interesting backstories.
Herman has achieved that and more Christmas Islandin which bad weather – and Oliver (Andrew Walker), a handsome air traffic control officer – force Kate, a pilot (Rachel Skarsten), to divert the private plane she is flying and land it in a small town, potentially ruining the flight . jeopardizing the Sharpes’ planned Swiss vacation, the family of four on board, and Kate’s hopes for a new job.
To keep the Christmas magic – and Kate’s potential promotion – alive, she teams up with Oliver to give the Sharpes a holiday to remember. Along the way, Kate and Oliver might fall in love.
Herman, who was “absolutely excited” about casting the Hallmark stars to bring her script to life, hopes that after watching Christmas Islandor any of her eleven films for the network, viewers “take away a sense of joy.”
“I know it’s really cheesy and boring, but it’s true. These are some dark days we’re going through right now,” she said. “… Given all that, I think it’s nice to have two hours of peace and just feel family, spirit, holidays and love, sealed with a kiss. I hope people walk away with that.”
Herman may not be an unlikely person to bring Christmas love stories to life, as she herself is a single Jewish woman.
“I joke to my friends that I should start writing horror movies if I want to break the romance in my real life, but in the meantime, I’m very successful at connecting other people on the page,” Herman told ET. . “A bad date, as long as there’s no danger, is always fodder for material, so that’s the attitude I go into it with, always looking for the positives in my experience.”
Although she hasn’t found her happily ever after, Herman said she is a “true believer” in love.
“I love working on these films. I truly believe that true love exists for everyone,” she said. “It may not happen as easily as in a two-hour block, but it helps to imagine the dynamics and possibilities of where you might meet someone.”
While it may not be as easy to find love in real life as Hallmark Channel movies would have you believe, Herman said that’s exactly the point of the network’s movies.
“It’s like comfort food,” she said. “Spoiler: They will always get together.”
Christmas Island premieres Saturday, November 11 on the Hallmark Channel.
RELATED CONTENT:
