Hallmark is collecting country music royalties for its upcoming holiday film “The Grand Ole Opry Christmas,” its first collaboration with the 100-year-old Opry. But cameos by Pam Tillis, Megan Moloney, and Brad Paisley, to name a few, are just one bullet in a long list of reasons why this is one of the year’s most moving films.
The force behind it all started hitting star Nicki DeLoach as she was getting her hair and makeup done backstage at the Opry, with Tillis sitting in the chair next to her.
“There was music on and she was singing along to it, and I was like, ‘God bless you, Nicki. Angelic voices! This is crazy,'” she told Variety backstage at the Opry. DeLoach has been working at Hallmark Channel for 10 years and has read a lot of scripts. But this time, I didn’t even have to read it to agree.
“We didn’t have a script yet. I heard ‘Grand Ole Opry’ and thought, ‘Yes.'” “Because it’s been a big part of my life since I was little,” she said.
Ms. DeLoach grew up in South Georgia and is very close to her father, whom she calls her “North Star.” He passed away in 2021 after battling dementia.
“Our love language was music. Thanks to my father and grandmother, I knew at the age of three that I wanted to be a performer. And between the two of them, they would take me to dance lessons, and my father would drive me two hours each way to go to vocal lessons,” she explained. “He’d say things like, ‘Maybe someday I’ll be on that stage,’ and I’d be like, ‘Dad, don’t be ridiculous.’ And one of the places we always talked about wanting to go before he got sick was to go to the Grand Ole Opry together, which we never did because we wouldn’t have any of the opportunities without him. I always said, ‘No, I’m going with Dad.’ he became ill. We never needed to come together. ”
“So when this movie came out and I knew I could come to the Grand Ole Opry and step on that stage and be a part of it, it felt divine, like a full-circle moment that started when I was a kid and happened decades later. We can’t control timing. The right time is the right time. From the moment I got here, my face hurt from laughing so hard. I can feel my dad everywhere.”
One of the things her father always talked about was Vince Gill’s “Silky Tones.” And when she visited the Opry for the first time before filming began, she was given a tour and tickets to the show. The performer was Vince Gill.
“It’s truly a dream come true, not only professionally, but also on a very deep personal level,” DeLoach said.
DeLoach plays Gentry, a songwriter who gives up on his dreams after his father, a country icon, dies in a tragic accident. In the film, she travels back in time and is able to spend precious time with her father (Rob Mays). In one scene between the two, Gentry is overcome with emotion, as is DeLoach. Her mother cried at the scene on set, as did the film’s producers gathered around the monitors in Video Village.
“It’s very difficult because I don’t use my personal life for the role. I don’t work with stand-ins. It’s all about imagination, creating characters from scratch. Human experience is very limited, but imagination is infinite. It also allows me to be emotional not once, but twice, three times, four times,” she said. “But obviously that truth is still there. Nothing can stop me from realizing as a little girl the magic of being able to see my father again and spend another minute in the past. You have to choose to leave or go back to the present…When I read that in the script, I cried like a baby. It was so beautifully written. It also felt like an honor to someone who has lost someone.”
DeLoach will star opposite Chris Polaha, who plays Gentry’s lifelong friend and talent manager, in the film. The actors have previously worked together three times on “North Shore,” “Awkward” and “The Ringer,” but they have never worked together on a Hallmark project.
“We were backstage and all the artists were getting ready to go on stage, practicing in the room, and the door was wide open so everyone could just listen,” she recalled. “We had our jaws on the ground, and Chris looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘This was meant to be. That’s why we’ve never worked together before. We’ve been waiting for this.’
The film and its message reminded DeLoach of what makes Hallmark so successful and why, in her opinion, the company has only grown in the last decade.
“Our why is very clear to me. This is for our viewers. Everything we do is for our fans. Without them, we wouldn’t have our network. And they perfectly reflect what we’re trying to put out into the world: community, love, hope, faith, and the assurance that ultimately it’s going to be okay,” she explained. “I think that’s what everyone feels at the end of 90 minutes of our movie. We go through hard things and in the end it’s okay. That’s what they want every time they turn on the TV. I’m that audience. I survived three heart surgeries as a child. I’ve seen them fight one of the cruelest diseases. I’ve seen them take their last breath in this world. I know that desire and the desire to just live. Just believe and hold on to it and find a place where you know you’ll be okay at the end of the day. ”
“A Grand Ole Opry Christmas” will air on Hallmark on Saturday, November 29th at 8pm and stream the next day on Hallmark+.
