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‘Tis the season for holiday romcoms! Hallmark’s 15th annual Countdown to Christmas is well underway, with close to 50 premieres planned before the end of December 2024, including three featuring longtime network star Benjamin Ayres.
Though seeing himself onscreen in Hallmark’s Christmas movies is nothing new for Ayres, it will be a brand new experience for his grade school-aged daughters, Isadora and Evie, when they watch the November 9 premiere of Hallmark Channel’s “Santa Tell Me.”
“You know what, they haven’t even watched any of my Hallmark movies,” Ayres admitted to Heavy. “They know that I’m an actor and that I go away to shoot this stuff, but I don’t think there’s any (movies) of mine they’ve watched.”
But that’s about to change, Ayres said, revealing that their family plans to tune in together for the “Santa Tell Me” premiere, the first of three Hallmark movies that he appears in this holiday season. Ayres is looking forward to his girls’ feedback, but laughed at the thought of their reactions to seeing him courting a woman other than their mom.
He said, “My oldest will be fine, but my youngest might be like, ‘That’s weird, Dad!'”
Benjamin Ayres Says the Comedy of ‘Santa Tell Me’ Made the Movie an Easy Yes for Him
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HallmarkChristopher Russell, Daniel Lissing, Erin Krakow, Benjamin Ayres, and Kurt Szarka in Hallmark’s “Santa Tell Me”
Ayres told Heavy he wants to show “Santa Tell Me” to his kids because it’s a “true comedy” that he had a blast making during the week he was on-set to film his extended cameo. The movie reunites “When Calls The Heart” lead Erin Krakow and Daniel Lissing, who played her love interest and husband during the first five seasons of the series.
When Krakow’s character discovers a letter from Santa that claims her soul mate’s name will be Nick, she starts to date three different men, all named Nick — played by Ayres, Christopher Russell and Kurt Szarka.
“It was nice for us to just hang out and have some laughs,” Ayres told Heavy, adding that though he knew Russell, he’d never met Szarka before. “Kurt’s fantastic, he’s a really good actor, nice guy, funny guy. So we sort of developed this unique relationship, the three of us in the movie — the Nicks!”
“There’s one scene in particular that just really worked out,” Ayres continued. “It was funny on the page, but once we got together, we kind of took it to a whole other level. I think we found some really fun visual gags and kind of added some great little nuance for our characters.”
“Santa Tell Me” is the first Hallmark project for screenwriter and director Ryan Landels, Ayres said, adding that he “pulled out all the stops” to make the film shine as they filmed in the Vancouver area.
Ayres explained, “Visually, it looks beautiful. The script is amazing. He pulled all the favors that he could get for specific locations in the city, and it just looks very rich. The editing is snappy. The dialogue is great. It’s very funny, heartwarming. I think fans are really gonna love it.”
During a November 8 Facebook Live conversation between Krakow and Lissing, he said he was “laughing out loud” at the three Nicks while watching an advance screener of the movie, which he called “super sweet” and “magical.”
“Great, great, great guys, really great actors,” Lissing said of Ayres, Russell and Szarka. “Those comedy elements and those gags that you’ll see — I won’t say too much — but I was laughing out loud seeing how they came together. Just a great job, the whole team.”
“It was so much fun working with each one of them,” Krakow agreed, describing a scene with all three men toward the end of the movie as pure “hilarity.”
Benjamin Ayres’ Family is Ready to Kickoff Christmas With Movies & Decorations
In addition to watching the premiere of “Santa Tells Me” with his kids, Ayres told Heavy his daughters are eager to decorate the house for the holidays in the coming days.
“Anything Christmas themed they love, especially my oldest,” Ayres said. “She wants the decorations up now.”
Once they’ve decked the halls and watched some of their favorite non-Hallmark holiday movies, including “Elf” and “Nightmare Before Christmas,” they’ll have the chance to watch their dad in two other Christmas movies in December.
Ayres appears in Hallmark+’s “Happy Holidays From Cherry Lane” premiering on December 14 and marking a reunion for him with Erica Durance, his co-star in 2021’s “Color My World With Love.” He also stars opposite Kimberley Sustad in “The Santa Class,” a Hallmark Channel premiere slated for December 16.
As time flies by, Ayres said it’s “wild” how he’s now able to keep track of the years “based on my Christmas movies.” He’s been fortunate enough to star in some of Hallmark’s holiday classics over the years, including 2020’s “Cranberry Christmas” with Nikki DeLoach and “Miracle in Bethlehem, PA,” 2023’s ratings record breaker for Hallmark Mystery.
In addition to his movies, Ayres continues to oversee Romance University, an online community of romcom and Christmas movie fans with events, giveaways and merchandise dedicated to the genre and raising money for charities. Since Ayres launched the initiative in late 2022, he told Heavy, fans have raised around $35,000 for various causes.
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