As Mistletoe Murders returns for its third season, the Hallmark mystery series is digging even deeper into its characters, exploring the complicated pasts and emotional stakes that make the show so compelling. In a conversation with Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado, Sarah Drew and Peter Mooney open up about playing in this world together in season 3.
For Drew, one of the biggest surprises of the new season was getting to explore a different side of Emily, particularly through her complex history with Aaron played by guest star Aaron Ashmore. “It's very fun to get to keep coming back to these characters and to find all these different little places and layers and nuances,” Drew told me. “This season, for me, the part that was the most surprising was finding who Grace was in her relationship with Aaron. Grace as Emily but before she became Emily.”
Through flashbacks, viewers get a closer look at her past and how it has shaped her. “She has a really interesting and complicated relationship with Aaron and we get to see through flashbacks who she is and how that relationship has felt really tethered over the years,” Drew explained. “And I found it very surprising because I found myself on set feeling like, ‘Oh my goodness, she's so much more vulnerable in her past. She's so much more vulnerable when she's with him.’ It’s all very complicated. And she still feels this connection to him that she can't quite untether herself from.”
That history impacts how she tackles her current relationship with Sam. “It's the thing that really creates a bunch of trust issues with her and her future with Sam, having been burned before while in a very vulnerable state,” Drew said. “So that for me was a very lovely and surprising exciting little tidbit of fun for her for this season.”
For Peter Mooney, season 3 offers an opportunity to explore how Sam navigates his carefully structured world. “Sam's pretty steadfast,” he said. “It's a slightly different thing, especially not jumping into his past. I feel like he's moving ahead with a set of operating principles and rules that make his life all function and make being a single father and the demands of his job all work together. Then Emily comes into his life and disrupts all that.”
“Watching how he tries to continue on the same thing while navigating this relationship is an interesting dynamic, especially as we get into like season 3 and the relationship becomes deeper and deeper and deeper,” said Mooney. “The stakes are higher and seeing how he tries to balance his life with this relationship and make this thing possible and this connection possible and sustainable is really interesting and really fun to play.”
Bringing the on-screen chemistry to life requires a solid working relationship behind the scenes. Drew and Mooney’s partnership has only gotten more comfortable as the seasons have gone on. “Right out the gate, we got along really well. It was really lucky from the get-go, but I feel like it just gets more trusting, more fun, easier as we as we go. When you're in a working relationship, a friendship where you can do no wrong, where you know that if you try something, you're not going to be made to feel like an idiot, then you can take more risks and you can have more fun,” Drew said. “It's a very happy set. We all laugh a lot. He's very silly and creates a lot of joy on set.”
Mooney agreed, pointing out that have an enjoyable working environment is especially important with their intense shooting schedule. “It's demanding. We shoot the show pretty quickly. It's a lot of pages per day. There's a lot to do,” he said. “Sarah's in virtually every scene, so it's so nice that we can just come to work and play while we're there.”
The actors explained that filming two episodes in about 14 days means working at a particularly fast past. Luckily, it’s one that they’re used to thanks to the schedule of a traditional Hallmark movie. “It's actually pretty similar. We get one less day, right? Because we have to do two full episodes in 14 days and a movie is a full two-hour movie in 15 days, generally speaking,” explained Drew. “So we get one less day per two episodes than they would have. I'm used to this pace.”
“It’s fast. It’s wild. We go for three times longer than a movie to get all the episodes done, but still it feels so fast when we come out the end of it,” confirmed Mooney. “We're back at fittings at the start of the season and all of a sudden we're at the wrap party.”
Catch Mistletoe Murders season 3 airing November 5 on Hallmark Channel and streaming the next day on Hallmark+.
