A Grand Ole Opry Christmas Is Nikki DeLoach's Most Personal Hallmark Film Yet
"Music was our love language,” Nikki DeLoach said about her late father. The duo spent countless hours listening to music as he drove her to voice and dance lessons, dreaming of one day visiting the Grand Ole Opry together. They never got the chance before he passed, but his memory is embedded in her new Hallmark Channel movie A Grand Ole Opry Christmas. The film finds her character Gentry transported back to 1995 thanks to Opry magic and reunited with her late country musician father for the holidays.
DeLoach said yes to filming a Christmas movie to celebrate 100 years of the Grand Ole Opry before there was even a script, joking that she would gladly sweep up trash in the building if they let her. “I just felt like what a profound miracle of an experience,” she told me for Pop Culture Planet. In another lifetime she was in the music business, but walked away after experiencing “creative wounds,” but it was a dream her father held onto tightly. “My dad was so sad that I wasn't singing anymore. That was something he wanted for me so much. To get a role where I get to step back into that, for it to be at the Opry, for it to be a story about a daughter who gets to go back in time and spend more time with her father, […] there was so many miracles and God winks that came together to smile down upon us to make this movie. I've been saying that like I need a new word for grateful because it's just not big enough to express my gratitude and how honored I am to have been a part of this. It was a professional and personal dream come true.”
The experience left her overwhelmed in the best way. “I cried every day. Like multiple times a day,” DeLoach shared. “It was just so overwhelming how unbelievably lucky we were. All these stars that had to align to bring this together. My jaw was on the ground for the entire time we were filming this movie.”
The partnership between Hallmark and the Grand Ole Opry was a match made in heaven, showcasing just how much of a perfect fit country music is for holiday storytelling. “There is something so simple but profound about country music, and I think that the same is true for Hallmark movies,” said DeLoach. “That is really the recipe for making a Hallmark movie. And I think in the storytelling of country music, that is at the center of a great country music song. It is a story. These artists have the ability to tell a story through song and make you feel like it's your story.”
For DeLoach, the two brands shared the same spirit. “I can't imagine two brands that are more connected and more appropriate actually to make a Hallmark movie than Hallmark and the Grand Ole Opry. They are legendary brands that really stand for connection and for community and for joy,” she shared. “There's just a sacredness to both what I know the Halls have done with Hallmark for so many generations and then what I know to be true at the Opry and that place in that legendary building and what it means to so many people.”
A Grand Ole Opry Christmas also features an impressive lineup of country music icons including Riders in the Sky, Drew Baldridge, Tigirlily Gold, Megan Moroney, and Mickey Guyton. “An embarrassment of riches,” enthused DeLoach, praising Allison Thiel, the head of music at Hallmark. “Not only did she deliver such extraordinary artists, [but] it's multigenerational, which is what the Opry is. […] I feel like the movie is a perfect representation of what you would get to go see a show at the Opry on any given night. Just incredible performers. Every single one of them know the legacy and the sacredness of that stage and that building.”
DeLoach even got to share the stage with the legendary Brad Paisley who wrote and sang an original song for the film. “There's no acting. We can't believe this is happening around us,” she laughed. “To see him in his glory on that stage and get to be a part of that moment and get to do it on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry and the audience is packed with people, that was one of those like ‘I can't believe that this is happening. No acting necessary. I am in awe of what is happening right now.’ That whole day I was just trying to stay in my body so I would remember it.”
Another meaningful scene mirrors her real life as Gentry works on a song with her father in the past. “My dad really wanted me to be a recording artist. It was not lost on me sitting there playing this character. Art was imitating life in such a profound way,” DeLoach explained. “Getting to go back in time and getting to have that moment for Gentry with her father, but also for me, Nikki, right? To get to have that moment, it took my breath away.”
See DeLoach’s heartfelt tribute to her father when A Grand Ole Opry Christmas hits Hallmark Channel on November 29 at 8pm ET.
