Lacey Chabert's Simple Tip For Becoming A Hallmark Movie Star

If you want to be a Hallmark movie star, there's clearly no better person to ask for advice than the queen of Hallmark herself, Lacey Chabert. Running the show on one of the channel's beloved films can't be easy. Yet, Chabert has done it nearly 40 times, and she shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. So, what's her secret to making it look so easy? 

It doesn't hurt that the now-40-year-old has been gracing our screens since 1991. Chabert had her first kiss on the set of "Party of Five" and famously "made 'fetch' happen" as Gretchen Wieners nearly two decades ago. In other words, this leading lady has had plenty of practice in front of the camera. But, she isn't just a natural when it comes to acting; she was also born to be a perfect fit for The Hallmark Channel, because Chabert and the network have one very important love in common. 

Hallmark churns out heartwarming, wholesome content all year round, but they're best known for their movies around the holiday season. In 2022, Hallmark premiered a whopping 40 new original holiday movies. Consequently, an unexpected side effect of shooting Hallmark Christmas movies is that you may have to channel some Christmas spirit at the least Christmas-y times of year. Luckily, this is no problem for Chabert. 

In a 2022 interview with fellow Hallmark Christmas movie star, Sarah Ramos (for Bustle), Chabert shared that as a child, she was known for her catchphrase, "Why can't Christmas be longer?" She thinks this definitely helps her in her career, and it's easy to see why. When asked if she had tips for being a great Hallmark Christmas movie star, she laughed and said, "Well, loving Christmas doesn't hurt." Chabert says that she is in "full Christmas mode" as soon as Halloween wraps up, and  "Christmas music 24/7" is a must.

Still, Chabert's enviable holiday cheer doesn't make her immune to the challenges of making holiday content year-round. "If you're sweating in a wool coat in the middle of summer, you're definitely filming a Christmas movie," she explains. "You have to pretend to shiver and rub your hands together ... A couple times I caught myself fanning myself in the scene."  If even the real-life Christmas queen struggles with filming holiday movies, there's truly no hope for the rest of us.

Christmas spirit is a key ingredient in the recipe for the perfect Hallmark Christmas movie performance. The hard work, however, doesn't stop once you've memorized the "12 Days of Christmas" and skipped Thanksgiving when putting up holiday decorations. To produce as much content as they do, Hallmark needs to film fast, which means that shooting days usually last for over 12 hours. Besides just the grueling work days, that's a lot to memorize for someone as busy as Chabert, who is already working on her fifth Hallmark movie of 2023 in July. So, what's her secret? She explained to Bustle that the first step is to "study the script, get the emotional beats down." She doesn't actually memorize her lines until the night before a shoot, so as she says, "it's fresh on the brain."

Chabert clearly has this schedule down pat, but she also has strategies for her career as a whole. "I always set new goals for my career — to do better, tell stories that are important and close to my heart, and to work with people that inspire me," she told Thrive Global. "I really don't look back and consider anything a mistake, even though some things maybe felt like a misstep or not my favorite experience, because you learn. If you really can look into it, and take your ego out of it, you can learn from every experience." Now, that's a good tip no matter what you're doing.