Jessy Schram Talks Switching Up Romance Tropes In A Suite Holiday Romance
Following Mystic Christmas, Jessy Schram is back for the all-new Countdown to Christmas movie A Suite Holiday Romance. In a conversation with Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado, she opens up about collaboration, romance tropes, and building on-screen chemistry.
Move over Eloise, this time Schram plays Sabrina who is staying in a fancy hotel suite for Christmas as she ghostwrites a famous art dealer’s memoir. “We filmed in this amazing historical hotel. It's still running,” said Schram. “To have the bones of that hotel and then fill it with Christmas, it almost didn't feel transitional because it felt so homey and so grounded.”
There’s a case of mistaken identity when Sabrina meets Ian, played by Dominic Sherwood. He thinks she’s a wealthy guest, while she thinks the personal secretary is British nobility. “We both really cared about what we were doing and wanting to make it pop on the screen, but, to be honest, all he needed to do was open his mouth and talk and I feel like the chemistry was there,” she laughed. “He's so charming and he's such a fantastic actor. Really fantastic with comedy and the drama and really knows how to receive what you're giving him and really react to things. I'm very lucky that it was very easy chemistry and I felt like it only grew the more that we were filming because we became actual friends.”
The film also features flashbacks to art dealer Grayson’s life that parallel the present. “I loved the self-reflection in this film,” said Schram, highlighting the period piece element that weaves throughout the modern film. “I just thought that the actors that played the younger versions of Grayson and Charlotte did such a beautiful job. […] There's a humor and there's a light-heartedness, while also telling a really deep story.”
Collaboration was key in making A Suite Holiday Romance, with Schram and Sherwood getting a chance to really add their own ideas to the film. “Dom and I got together a few times and went through the script and just talked about what we saw in it and what we'd like to bring out or what the intentions were,” she explained. “It was always the united front of creativity and then us going together like two kids that are putting on the play to the director and him being like, ‘I love that.’ It was an extremely collaborative and intelligent experience.”
Her favorite scene to bring to life featured the duo swapping a sweet romance trope on its head in a way that put the power in Schram’s hands. “I was supposed to be walking out into the street and then this man that's wearing a reindeer onesie is riding his bike through. There's that moment of pulling you from the street [and] you're just very close and it's the first time that you realize that you're next to somebody,” said Schram. “Dom had actually suggested that we swap it, so I'm the one that saves him because it's my city. So he's the one that steps out into the street at the wrong time. I loved filming that just because I felt it was it was fun to explore the levels of how you do this in a way that feels real, but also is elevated enough to make people feel something.”
Schram even teased a dance sequence to watch out for in the film. “Dom actually choreographed that and we all got together over the weekend and helped make that happen. So that's just a fun little tidbit of the movie is we choreographed that for the movie,” she laughed. “Nobody asked us to, but we did.”
When the cast wasn’t filming scenes, they were playing Uno. “That was really fun,” Schram said. “[It] has nothing to do with the movie, but it just shows how much we all really did bond and have that chemistry with each other. It was such a supportive environment and there was so much collaborating.”
Catch A Suite Holiday Romance airing December 13 on Hallmark Channel.
