Heavy/Hallmark Bethany Joy Lenz has revealed which Hallmark leading man she wants to work with next.
After a decade of making movies for Hallmark Channel, actress Bethany Joy Lenz has worked with many of the network’s leading men, from Kristoffer Polaha in 2023’s hit “A Biltmore Christmas” to Tyler Hynes in 2020’s “An Unexpected Christmas.”
But in a June 2024 interview with Bustle, Lenz revealed which one she most wants to reunite with for her next project — Andrew Walker, who co-starred with her in 2019’s “Bottled With Love” and 2017’s “Snowed Inn Christmas.”
“I just want to work with Andrew Walker again,” she told the outlet while promoting “Savoring Paris,” which premiered on June 8. “I could do the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks thing with Andrew Walker, (since) he and I have such great fun together.”
Walker has since told Heavy he’d love to reunite on-screen with Lenz. But he might have to wait in line, because the actress told TV Insider she’d also love to reunite with her “One Tree Hill” husband, James Lafferty, in a Hallmark project.
Andrew Walker Calls Bethany Joy Lenz His ‘Creative Muse’
HallmarkBethany Joy Lenz and Andrew Walker in Hallmark’s “Bottled With Love”
Walker is a busy guy these days, between a jam-packed schedule of Hallmark shoots and running his new company, Skin Mason. But when Heavy alerted the longtime leading man to Lenz’s comments, he said he would “drop anything” to make it happen.
“I would drop anything to be back at it with Joy,” the actor told Heavy via email. “I’ve always said, Joy is my creative muse. She challenges me, inspires me creatively, and always has my back. There’s few actresses who I authentically feel like I’m at my best. Joy is one of them!”
In 2019, when Walker and Lenz appeared on Hallmark’s “Home & Family” talk show, the actress said they’d developed a great rapport with each other over the years, beginning with a TV series in 2002.
“We have a good time together,” the actress said. “We’ve worked together three times before, and the first time was on a show called ‘Maybe It’s Me’ forever ago!”
“On this project, it was just so great to get together again and it was just like family,” she continued.
Revealing that he’d dubbed Lenz “the doctor” on set because “she makes everything better,” Walker said he loved that they had a similar work ethic, studying scripts and collaborating on scenes ahead of their shoots.
Bethany Joy Lenz Says She’s Also Open to Reuniting With Kristoffer Polaha & James Lafferty
GettyBethany Joy Lenz and James Lafferty attend the ‘One Tree Hill’ Final Season cocktail reception in 2012.
In addition to wanting to collaborate with Walker, Lenz also told Bustle she’d be happy to reunite with her 2023 co-star Polaha for another movie, saying, “Kris Polaha is awesome.”
Many fans have wondered whether there will be a sequel for “A Biltmore Christmas,” and Polaha told Heavy shortly after the movie’s premiere in December that he was already thinking about possibilities for their characters, including his time-traveling 1940s actor Jack Huston.
“Yeah, I think there’s a lot of fun stories to tell there,” Polaha said. “I’d love to see what Jack Huston does in the modern Hollywood landscape. That’d be funny because you’ve got naturalism and all these other actors, and he’d be like, ‘Wait, who? What?’ That in itself would be a fun little storyline.”
Meanwhile, Lenz told TV Insider in June that another reunion she’d love to make happen on Hallmark is with Lafferty, her “One Tree Hill” co-star for nearly a decade. The relationship between their characters, Haley and Nathan, was a big plotline in the series. They got married as teens, went through a brief breakup, and welcomed a baby during their senior year on “One Tree Hill.” Fans even dubbed the iconic TV couple “Naley.”
“I think me and James doing a movie would probably be a super winner,” Lenz told TV Insider, “but we’d have to find exactly the right one because that’s a big deal. It’s got to be a really good one.”
“He’s doing so well,” she added. “He’s got his show, ‘Everyone Is Doing Great,’ and it’s brilliant. He’s just doing so well that I think it would be fun all these years later to do something together. We’ll see.”