Kristoffer Polaha on the Joy of Making Hallmark Movies & Dating Advice He Gave Meghan Markle
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Grab your coziest blanket and all the marshmallows that can fit in an oversized mug. Kristoffer Polaha, who’s starred in an epic sixteen Hallmark films, has another on-screen treat up his sleeve. This time, it’s a holiday movie called We Wish You a Married Christmas, out on October 22, which tells the story of a couple who are having trouble connecting. They try to reignite their spark at a quaint small-town inn and the previews promise candy canes, stolen kisses and a very cute alpaca.
That’s not the only romantic story Polaha is telling lately. The actor-turned-writer co-wrote Where the Sun Rises, a novel about love, loss and family, all set on the picturesque beaches of Hawaii. It’s the second book in his series, From Kona with Love, which he penned alongside novelist Anna Gomez, and was released on October 11.
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SheKnows chatted with Polaha about creating his own stories, Hallmark’s guerilla filmmaking style and the text former co-star Meghan Markle sent him when she met Prince Harry.
SheKnows: What inspired you to make the leap from acting to writing?
Kristoffer Polaha: I started a production company about five years ago. Being an actor for hire, while it’s an awesome, awesome gig, the dream job of my childhood, as a grown man, you get to a point where you’re like…there’s more to be done. I would find myself pitching in these rooms with ideas that I thought were really good, and one of the notes I kept getting back was, “We need IP, this is a great idea, but it’s not based on anything. It’s too vulnerable to dump a bunch of money into it because we just don’t know what it’s going to be but if we had a book or an article or a song…”
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I started fishing around the idea of…what does it cost to buy books and then one of the thoughts I had was, well, I should just write my own. But that’s not easy if you’re not a writer. I met somebody named Anna Gomez through a neighbor. He said, “Hey, I know this writer. She’s written six books. And she’s aiming to put one of her books on Hallmark.”
[Anna and I] had a very candid conversation about how hard it is to get things made and what it takes. I said, “You know, if you ever wanted to just write a book, like a Christmas one or a little romance, we could do that.” And my thinking was it would enlarge my footprint to have my name on a book and to have something in Barnes & Noble or Amazon. But also walking into a room and saying, “Here’s the IP, I shaped it. I know how to take this all the way from page to screen. You know, let’s make this movie.”
SK: You also have a Hallmark movie coming out this month! What would you say to people who might have some misconceptions about Hallmark films?
KP: If you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a movie by the network that it’s on. I think that Hallmark is brilliant in that it has created a genre of its own. When you watch a Hallmark movie, you enter into the Hallmark bubble and you escape for a minute. You buy all the conceits and you accept that it’s cheesy and you accept that everyone’s going to have hot cocoa and there’s going to be a snowball fight, the girl is going to fall, the guy is going to catch her and they’re going to kiss. It’s easy to make fun of, it’s low hanging fruit. It’s easy to be like, “Oh, this is schlock.” But you know what’s funny? All movies are the same thing. It’s all the same machine. It costs $80 million to make a movie that’s going to go into the Oscar race. It just costs money. It takes time. And we’re making these movies in three weeks for $2 million. So, if you were to take the same ingredients and flood it with time and money, you would make a product that’s just as good as the next thing. I would say to people, “Give it a chance. Just give it a chance.”
SK: Hallmarks films are always so cozy — like you mentioned, it’s hot chocolate and snowball fights. Is that how it feels behind-the-scenes while filming?
KP: It’s literally guerilla filmmaking. There are no frills, no extra cush[iness] But everybody who’s on that set knows what they signed up for and everybody to a person has just been awesome…they’re like, this ain’t going to make me movie star so let’s just make the best [movie]. It’s funny, I remember I showed up to The Dater’s Handbook and the costume designer apologized, she was like, “I’m so sorry. This is a Hallmark movie.” I said, “I gotta stop you here. You’re the first person I’m meeting and you’ve apologized now like three times.”
She’d worked on bigger TV [shows]…and bigger just means more money, broader audience, network stuff, whatever. And I said, “You have to stop apologizing because I’m treating this thing like it’s a Scorsese film. It’s still my base, and it’s still my name.” Since 2016, I’ve done 16 of them. I mean, it’s not a bad way to make a living.
SK: You starred alongside Meghan Markle in The Dater’s Handbook. What memories come to mind when you think back to working with her?
KP: We had a great time…I called my wife and said, “Meghan and I are going on fake date tonight.” We had dinner every night for three weeks. The only time we hung out was while we were filming so we had these 15 days. She was dating a guy in Toronto and and she wasn’t really into the dude and I was like, “You just got out of a marriage, why are you jumping into another relationship? Go be single, be free.”
She texted me in January and she was like, “I took your advice. I’m single, I’m free. I’m going to see who’s out there.” In March, I get this other text and she’s like, “Well, I met someone.” I said, “Do you like him?” And she said, “I kinda do.” And then of course, it was Harry.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Before you go, click here to see which books you should read based on your last binge-watch.
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