Heavy/Hallmark Hallmark veteran Nikki DeLoach mentored the cast of "True Justice: Family Ties"
With nearly 20 Hallmark movies under her belt, Nikki DeLoach is one of the network’s most prolific and beloved stars — and one of its most social. So it seems fitting that she’s taken on the task of welcoming a new generation of actors into the Hallmark family.
DeLoach, 44, rarely misses a chance to connect with or cheer on her co-stars, from promoting their movies on social media to coordinating get-togethers with Hallmark besties like Erin Cahill, Ashley Williams, and her “Curious Caterer” co-star Andrew Walker.
In a new interview with Southern Living magazine published on January 11, 2024, DeLoach said she’s eager to influence up-and-coming actors at the network, hoping they’ll cultivate the same kind of camaraderie and work ethic as she and her peers have.
Here’s what you need to know:
Nikki DeLoach Hopes to Influence Younger Hallmark Stars on ‘How You Treat People On Set’
DeLoach’s newest movie, “True Justice: Family Ties,” gave her the chance to work with a “dream cast,” she said during their January 11 Facebook Live session.
The movie features a group of younger actors — Alexander Nunez, Marisa McIntyre, Katherine McNamara, Sabrina Saudin, and Markian Tarasiuk — who play law school classmates trying to help McNamara’s character, Casey, fight her brother’s imprisonment for a murder he didn’t commit. Among them, the oldest is 32-year-old Nunez.
The “True Justice” script was written by DeLoach and her screenwriting partner Megan McNulty, but the actress also appears in the movie alongside her friend and fellow Hallmark veteran Benjamin Ayres, 46. While filming in Ottawa, they subtly mentored the others a bit, she told Southern Living.
“One of the joys of this is also getting to be a leader and saying this is how we conduct ourselves at this network,” she said. “This is what we do. We support each other. We’re kind to each other. We’re each other’s cheerleaders.”
She continued, “If we get an opportunity to be a part of people coming up in the industry and setting a precedent and a tone of how you treat people on set, how you arrive and show up in terms of your work, all of those things, I think that’s really important because at the end of the day, I want an industry full of people like Hallmark actors. I want an industry full of that.”
DeLoach said she that even if younger actors learn those principles and take them beyond Hallmark, that’s a win in her eyes.
“I wish we had an industry where every single person behaved and acted like all of our Hallmark casts because what a nice, kind working environment we would all have all the time,” DeLoach said. “So the more you can set that tone and precedent, it spills over.”
Ayres, who launched his Romance University community of fans and stars in late 2022, said he hopes to help younger actors feel welcomed into the growing friendship group of Hallmark actors that he and DeLoach are part of.
He told Southern Living, “It’s also really hard to make new friends and what I like about these movies is that each time I get a new movie, it’s like, ‘Sweet, who is my new friend going to be?’ Our community just continues to get bigger for us and then we get to go to these events and it’s like, (in Hallmark movies) we tell these stories about friendship, love and community and we’re actually doing it on the other side of the camera as well and that’s really, really important to me.”
Markian Tarasiuk Says He Appreciated the Way ‘True Justice’ Makes a Group of Millennials the Heroes of the Story
During Hallmark’s Facebook Live session with several of the “True Justice” cast members, Tarasiuk, 30, expressed his appreciation for DeLoach and McNulty making the cast a group of law students and interns, rather than older, seasoned lawyers played by more established Hallmark actors. He said it made sense to him that a group of his peers would work so hard to exonerate an innocent man in the movie.
“I think that the hope and the justice and the truth is kind of what…represents, for me, the Millennials or, you know, the generation coming up,” he said.
DeLoach replied, “I think anytime you look at a generation that’s just under you, I think sometimes in society we have this thing where we think our generation is the best generation. Or, you know, like the younger ones…they’re not going to get it the way we did. And the way I see it is that every generation has this spark that makes them specifically unique. It’s like they come into the world in this period of time and they are shaped by that.”
She added, “What I do see is your generation … not wanting to compromise in terms of building a better future for the whole and I think that is so important.”
Tarasiuk said it wasn’t lost on him that in addition to DeLoach establishing a respectful, loving environment on-set, the story of the main characters in “True Justice” also is about setting differences aside to create a community working towards a common goal.
“The respect throughout the movie and that all the characters have for one another, I think that’s really, really beautiful,” he said.
At the end of their chat, DeLoach said the way the cast blended went better than she even imagined.
“My cheeks are hurting from smiling so hard,” she said. “I’m just so grateful you all said yes to the movie. I just could not have imagined a better cast and I’m so, so grateful and you’re so, so wonderful to work with. There was a magic that you had and Ben and I got to come in and like, experience it for ourselves. It was so fun to be able to watch all of you shine in this.”
“True Justice: Family Ties” premieres on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on January 12 at 9 p.m. Eastern time.