Tyler Hynes, Paul Campbell, and Andrew Walker Bring More Holiday Shenanigans To Three Wisest Men
Tyler Hynes, Paul Campbell, and Andrew Walker have stolen hearts as the Brenner brothers in Hallmark Channel’s Wise Men trilogy, but the brotherly love doesn’t end when the filming stops. During an interview for Three Wisest Men with Pop Culture Planet, Hynes even showed off a fan made ornament featuring all his boys, from the Brenners to The Groomsmen, and a Hawaiian Christmas shirt with their faces on it to wear aboard the Hallmark Christmas Cruise.
You can immediately tell how much fun the actors have both on and off screen together, which makes it even more entertaining for the audience to watch. And that’s the goal, to up the ante each film in both shenanigans and heart. “With every sequel, you always feel the urge to write bigger, better, and in a sense that's what we've done. You run out of fun things to do around the house, so you go, ‘What kind of trouble can we get into outside the house? How can we build something that feels like it stands on the shoulders of the previous movie?’ The challenge with it is to write the heart moments because how many lessons can these guys learn? Like how many times can these guys be at emotional ground zero and then have to build themselves back up?” shared Campbell, who not only stars in the films but writes them as well. “It's a real roller coaster over at the Brenner household. Where's the vacation where they all just go and have a nice family Christmas in Hawaii and nobody has their heart broken? I was realizing this in the middle of filming the number of times over these three movies where I go, ‘Suze, wait...’ ‘Cause Susie's about to break up with me. It's like 13 times a movie. It's walking that line, but I'm glad you liked that we went a little bigger and a little broader with this one because that's the way we felt the third one needed to go.”
There’s so much physical comedy and holiday hi-jinks that you can’t help but smile watching the third film in the series. “The ball pit got chaotic. Everybody pulled something. Paul ripped his pants clean in half through the crotch area,” laughed Hynes, sharing a behind-the-scenes video of the rip. Campbell added: “Wardrobe was so angry with me. I ripped through, they had to double reinforce those pants because I kept doing the inverted split, the inverted bicycle, I call it. Wardrobe had a sewing machine on set just madly sewing away to keep my private bits private.”
The trio play off each other so well that they’re able to help each other when they get stuck and turn it into something hilarious. “There's a scene where we have the beers in the garage and the and it was supposed to be this really somber, heartfelt scene,” shared Campbell. “It was a real struggle to find something dynamic about it. And Tyler just turned it on its head. In the middle of the scene, he stands up and he kicks over his bucket that he's sitting on really angry and the bucket just went flying. And then we were like, ‘That's really funny. What if it was so over the top that it led into Andrew standing up and kicking over his bucket and then me standing up and kicking over my chair?’”
“I was so broken up just doing that piece of the scene by the time we get to the end of the scene and Tyler's doing some insane like weird turn and beer drink, I literally could not get through a take. I had to turn my face away from the camera. You probably see it even in the take. I'm just fighting for my life to get my line out. Andrew and I couldn't even look at each each other. I couldn't look at Tyler because it was so stupid and yet it was still in character,” explained Campbell. Like he really found the limits of what's possible in that scene and it became something so gloriously different than we had intended. It was this sort of beautiful, I don't even want to say an accident because it was from his brain and it was intentional, but yeah it was the most unexpectedly impossibly hilarious scene and we barely pulled it off.”
That’s not the first time the actors have broken character from having too much fun together. “There's a few moments in number one where you see Paul breaking and it's in the movie. You see him sort of smiling. I think I spotted in this movie one or two times where I did that looking at you, Paul,” said Hynes. “I got to go back and watch it to find it. But there was a moment or two when the three of us were doing something and I remember looking at you and smiling and it's in the take in the movie.”
It just adds to the realness behind the Brenner boys. “We're like real brothers, you know? Your brothers and that's what you do. Even in your angriest, lowest moments, you're still laughing at each other,” said Campbell. “That's where the line between reality and fiction blurs.”
So what’s next for the Brenners? “I do love the idea of a fourth movie where we just go on vacation. Nothing bad happens. It's just enjoyable from beginning to end,” said Hynes.
Catch Three Wisest Men on Hallmark Channel and streaming on Hallmark+.
