Sarah Drew is spending the holiday season solving murders in a snowy small town and stepping into the famous hats of one of old Hollywood’s most powerful gossip columnists.
Drew, best known for playing Dr. April Kepner on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” returns as Emily Lane in the third season of Hallmark Channel’s “Mistletoe Murders,” which premiered Nov. 5. She also plays columnist Hedda Hopper opposite K.J. Apa and Jason Alexander in “Jimmy,” a Jimmy Stewart biopic that opened in theaters Nov. 6.
Drew, also an executive producer of “Mistletoe Murders,” spoke with Where Is The Buzz about Emily’s shady past, the romance at the heart of the show, and why she keeps choosing characters who help audiences feel less alone.
Back in Fletcher’s Grove
The series is based on the hit Audible podcast of the same name and pairs the intrigue of “Veronica Mars” with the festive charm of Hallmark’s holiday programming. New episodes air weekly on Hallmark Channel and stream the next day on Hallmark+. The first two seasons began streaming on Netflix on Nov. 1.
For viewers just discovering the show, Drew kept her pitch simple.
“It’s a cozy murder mystery set at Christmastime, and there is romance involved,” she said. “So you get to activate your brain and your heart all the way along. You’re falling in love with these characters who are falling in love, and you’re also sleuthing with them as they try to solve these crimes.”
“There’s also a really fun secret identity associated with main character Emily Lane. She’s got a shady past that we get little bits and pieces of in flashbacks throughout the seasons,” Drew said. “So it’s really fun. There’s a little bit of something for everyone.”
Emily is intelligent, independent, and observant, and she always seems to be a few steps ahead of everyone else. For Drew, the best part of playing her is the character’s double life.
“The most fun for me is the sort of dual sides,” Drew said. “She has this completely other personality, which is who she was in her past, and then she pulls some of that into her present in order to help solve the crimes and protect her people. So getting to play these two very different people who are all the same person feels like getting to play a couple different characters. And that for me, for an actor, is so much fun.”
The new season digs deeper into Emily’s backstory, including flashbacks with Aaron Ashmore, who plays Aaron, Emily’s former boyfriend.
“This season we get more insight into her backstory,” Drew said. “One of the things that I found most surprising while shooting this season were my flashbacks with Aaron Ashmore, who plays Aaron on the show.”
“I didn’t even plan to do this, but when I showed up on set and started playing these scenes, I found myself feeling much more vulnerable, much more emotional, much more shaky on my feet, not as rock steady as she is in her present,” she said. “It was surprising to me because it was like, oh, I hadn’t planned to do that, but now that we’re in the scene, playing the scene, this guy has a powerful hold over me, and it’s really hard to disentangle myself from him. That’s a really, really fun piece of this season.”
As for what makes Emily such a compelling detective during the most wonderful time of the year, Drew had a quick answer.
“Well, she’s trying to keep it the most wonderful time of the year, I guess,” she said.
Drew said the two genres share a comforting structure.
“I think what’s really fun about the mashing of these two genres is that there’s something comforting about both genres. If you look at the structure of a Christmas show or a Christmas movie and the structure of a murder mystery, you start in a place of disarray and brokenness,” she said. “You take a bunch of twists and turns. You have a cathartic emotional experience, and at the end everything is OK. You catch the killer, you get the guy.”
“Walking into both of these genres, we’re going to have justice at the end. We’re going to have some love at the end,” Drew said. “Especially … just being human in the world, so much of our lives are unsteady and so much of our lives are in limbo. So when you turn on this show, you’re like, I know what I’m going to get. I know what I’m in for, and it’s going to make me feel some stuff, and everything’s going to be OK at the end. And I think we all need a little bit more of that.”
Drew herself would not make much of a detective.
“Oh, man, I would run in the opposite direction. I do not like confrontation,” she said. “Or I would just ask a ton of questions. That’s the other thing. But I’m not good at puzzles. My husband will tell you he and my son are incredible at puzzles. I am not good at them.”
“I have other gifts,” she added. “So don’t try to get me to solve a crime. I won’t do it.”
Emily’s relationship with Detective Sam Wilner, played by Peter Mooney, also enters new territory this season.
“Season 3 is a really lovely progression for them,” Drew said. “I think we spent the first season getting to know each other, and the second season was a lot of will they, won’t they, and then she finally lets him in.”
And will they?
“They will,” Drew said. “And then of course her life gets blown up.”
“And so for Season 3, she’s now let him into her secret. But what comes with this secret is a whole bunch more roadblocks for the two of them,” she said. “So if last season is about will they, this season is about how will they. They’re trying to figure out how to do this thing while also immersed in a really wild adventure that creates a lot of conflict for the potential of their romance. But at least they’re in it together this season.”
Emily is skilled at uncovering everyone else’s secrets, but her own feelings can be hard to read. Drew said Sam is getting closer to solving that mystery, on Emily’s terms.
“Yes, but only because she’s allowing him to,” Drew said. “I think what’s so lovely about Sam, and has been so lovely about Sam all the way through all of these seasons, is that he really waits for her. He doesn’t push her. He doesn’t demand things from her. He wants to give her the space to come to him when she’s ready, and he’s done that in every season in a really beautiful and lovely way.”
“As much as he’s figuring out the mystery of Emily, I think it’s only so much as she is allowing him in, and he’s OK with that, which is very sweet,” she said.
As an executive producer, Drew said keeping the show’s cozy and suspenseful sides in balance is central to its appeal.
“The balance is the reason why people love the show. They love both sides of it,” she said. “People are crazy for mysteries. People are crazy for Christmas. When you smush the two together in a really magical way that still somehow feels cozy even though we’re solving murders, and where the romance is still really juicy and alive, it’s like the perfect combination for two genres that people really love.”
She gave the credit to the show’s creator.
“I think that’s all because of Ken Cuperus, who’s our showrunner and creator of the Audible series and the TV show. He’s just brilliant at weaving in and out of both of these genres and somehow making them make sense,” Drew said. “It’s kind of fun because it allows some sweetness to a murder mystery, and then it allows a bit of spice to a love story. So it’s good. You want to balance the sides a bit.”
Stepping into Hedda Hopper’s hats
In “Jimmy,” Drew plays Hopper, the influential gossip columnist who championed Stewart and covered his career. Directed by Aaron Burns from a script by Justin Strawhand, the film stars Apa as Stewart and Alexander as studio boss Louis B. Mayer. Fathom Entertainment released it nationwide.
“I had so much fun jumping into Hedda Hopper’s shoes,” Drew said.
Hopper was also known for her hats, so Drew likes to say she was “jumping into her hats.”
“That was a very big piece of her brand and identity,” she said.
Drew described Hopper as larger than life.
“She’s a character who was not inherently likable right off the bat. She had unbelievable power in Hollywood back then to either make someone’s career or tear them to shreds and leave them on the ground,” Drew said. “She was after the scoop and after the story, and all’s fair, all’s fair in Hollywood gossip.”
Yet Hopper had what Drew called “a really beautiful relationship, well, really interesting relationship” with Stewart.
“They came up together as actors, and he went on to become a star, and she had a couple smaller parts but never reached the stardom that he did,” Drew said. “I think she was so in love with the idea of being a part of the glitz and glamour of Hollywood that she made her own space for herself in a really incredible way.”
“Especially for a woman to be that influential in that period of time is pretty incredible, and she always had a soft spot in her heart for Jimmy because they did have this friendship,” she said. “So it’s very fun to jump into her hats and her shoes to play this. She’s got this crazy transatlantic accent. It’s just very fun to play in that era.”
The film follows Stewart from Hollywood stardom to combat in World War II and back.
“The movie is really special. It’s a beautiful, untold story of when Jimmy Stewart went to fight in World War II as a bomber pilot, and he rose the ranks quickly and had people under him, many soldiers under him, and he came home with a lot of PTSD,” Drew said. “And really, the shooting of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is the thing that kind of healed him and saved his life.”
“It’s a very moving journey through the big question of what does it mean to be a good man? How can I be of service in the world? I want my life to matter and mean something,” she said. “So that’s the journey the movie takes us on. It’s in theaters now, and it’s really beautiful.”
As for whether she kept any of Hopper’s signature hats: “I wish,” Drew said. “No … just the memories and the pictures.”
Characters that make people feel less alone
From April Kepner to Emily Lane, Drew has played characters audiences grow deeply attached to. She said her choices come down to one question.
“I think the big question I always ask when I’m thinking about, do I want to do this show, do I want to play this character, is, do I want to tell this story? And why do I want to tell this story?” Drew said. “What it ultimately comes down to is I think storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for people to feel less alone in this world.”
“So I think I gravitate towards stories that have characters that pull people in, that go through really hard stuff, have a transformational journey and come out the other side, so that people watching at home can go, I went through that. That’s me, too. If she can get through that, then I can get through it, too,” she said. “So all of my characters that I think people really respond to, they’re responding because in some way that character has made them feel a little bit less alone.”
With two projects reaching audiences this season, Drew said she hopes viewers take away much the same thing.
“Again, a similar answer to the one I just gave. I want people to watch it and see themselves and feel a little bit less alone and feel like they can get through anything,” she said. “For ‘Jimmy,’ I want people to see the really wonderful man that he was. I want them to be inspired by the life that he led, by the sacrifices that he made.”
“For ‘Mistletoe,’ I want people to just take a really fun ride with Emily. I want them to fall in love a little bit more with Sam and Emily,” Drew said. “I want them to get really invested in the mysteries and fall more in love with the whole town of Fletcher’s Grove so that we can keep doing it more and more.”
