Nikki DeLoach on personal connection to Hallmark Movie
Hallmark is raking in country music royalty for its upcoming holiday movie, “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas,” their first collaboration with the Opry as it celebrates its 100th year. But the cameos – from Pam Tillis, Megan Moroney and Brad Paisley, to name a few – were just one item on the long list of reasons why this is one of the most moving films of the year.
The power behind it began to hit star Nikki DeLoach, as she was getting her hair and makeup done backstage at the Opry, while Tillis sat in the chair next to her.
“The music is on, and she’s just singing to it, and I’m like, ‘Dear God, keep it together, Nikki. Voice of an angel! This is crazy,'” she shared Variety in her dressing room at the Opry. DeLoach has been working with the Hallmark Channel for 10 years and reads a lot of scripts. But this time she didn’t even have to read it to agree.
“There was no script yet. I heard ‘Grand Ole Opry’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ Because it’s been such a big part of my life since I was a little girl,” she said.
DeLoach grew up in South Georgia and had a very close relationship with her father, whom she calls her “north star.” He passed away in 2021 after a battle with dementia.
“Our love language was music. Thanks to him and my grandmother, I knew at the age of three that I wanted to be an artist. And between the two of them, they would take me to my dance lessons and my father would drive me two hours each way to go to singing lessons,” she explained. “He said things like, ‘One day you might be on that stage,’ and I said, ‘Dad, don’t be ridiculous.’ And one of the places we always talked about before he got sick was going to the Grand Ole Opry together. I’d never been there because any chance I’d had was without him. I always said no, I’m going with my father. He got sick. We were never able to get together.”
She continued, “So when this movie came out, and I heard that I was going to come to the Grand Ole Opry and get on that stage and be a part of it, it just felt divine, like a full-circle moment that started when I was a kid and happened decades later. We have no control over the timing. When the time is right, the time is right. Ever since I’ve been here, my face has hurt from smiling so hard. I can feel my dad everywhere.”
One thing her father always talked about was Vince Gill’s “silky tone.” When she first came to the Opry before filming started, she was given a tour and tickets to a show. Vince Gill was the artist.
“It really is a dream come true – not just professionally, but on such a deeply personal level,” DeLoach said.
DeLoach plays Gentry, a songwriter who gave up her dream after her country icon father died in a tragic accident. In the film, she travels back in time and spends precious time with her father (Rob Mayes). In one scene between the two, Gentry is overcome with emotion, just like DeLoach. Her mother watched the scene on set in tears, as did the film’s producers, who gathered around the monitors in the video village.
“It’s so hard because I don’t use my personal life in roles. I don’t work with substitution; it’s all imagination and building these characters from the ground up, because your experiences as a human being are very finite, but imagination is infinite. It also allows me to be emotional, not once, but take two, take three and take four,” she said. “But it’s clear that that truth is still there. My little girl self can’t stop herself from realizing the magic of seeing my dad again, going back in time and having one more minute. Then having to say goodbye to him again and choosing between leaving that behind and going back to the present…. When I read that in the script, I cried like a baby. It’s so beautifully written. That’s real. It also felt like an honor for anyone who has lost someone.”
DeLoach stars in the film opposite Kris Polaha, who plays Gentry’s lifelong friend and talent manager. The actors had worked together three times before — on “North Shore,” “Awkward” and “Ringer” — never on a Hallmark project.
“We were backstage and all the artists were preparing to go on stage, practicing in their rooms and with the doors wide open so everyone could just hear,” she remembers. “Our jaws were on the floor and Kris just looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘This was just meant to be. That’s why we never worked together before, because we were waiting for this.'”
The film and its message reminded DeLoach what it is that Hallmark does so well and why, in her opinion, it has only grown over the past decade.
“Our why is very clear to me. This is for our audience – everything we do is with the fans in mind. We don’t have a network without them, and they are a complete reflection of what we try to bring into the world, which is community, love, hope and faith and the knowledge that it will work out in the end,” she explained. “I think everyone feels that at the end of the 90 minutes of our film. We can go through hard things and then things can turn out okay in the end. That’s what they’re looking for every time they turn on the TV. I’m that audience. I’ve lived through my child’s three heart surgeries. I’ve seen my father fight one of the cruellest diseases. So has my grandfather. I’ve seen them take their last breaths in this world. I know that longing and that desire to just find some.” space where you can just believe and hope and hold on to that and know that it will work out in the end.”
“A Grand Ole Opry Christmas” airs Saturday, Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. on Hallmark and streams the next day on Hallmark+.
