Why Hallmark's Sarah Drew Wanted To Create A Spicy Lifetime Movie

One of Lifetime's Christmas movie releases in 2023 pushed the envelope by including something spicier than what made-for-TV Christmas film fans are used to. The movie, "A Cowboy Christmas Romance," included intimacy beyond just a kiss — it included a love scene between the two main characters, Lexie and Coby (played by Jana Kramer and Adam Senn). The scene in question starts in the kitchen before they take things to the barn for a steamy rendezvous.

The movie was written and executive produced by Sarah Drew, who is no stranger to the world of holiday movies — in 2022 Drew gave The List an inside look at "Reindeer Games Homecoming," a Lifetime holiday movie she wrote and starred in. 

While being interviewed by Entertainment Weekly about "A Cowboy Christmas Romance," Drew called the film "'Yellowstone' meets 'Bridgerton,' with a little Christmas spiced in there" and explained why she decided the movie needed a sex scene. Drew said she wasn't doing it to draw attention to the film. "I was like, 'No, I think this makes sense. They're falling in love,'" she said. "And every single step of the way is drawing them closer together. And they're super connected to one another. And they're grown ups. They're grown ups and they're feeling the vibes!"

Jana Kramer brought Sarah Drew onto her "Whine Down" podcast as a guest to discuss "A Cowboy Christmas Romance." Drew explained her desire to get deeper with the story because the sweet stuff in Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies isn't all that goes with the holiday season in real life. "There's drama that comes out and we never explore that stuff in the Christmas movies," Drew said. "It's always just about the cozy feelings. And those cozy feelings happen, but it's all mixed up with real family stuff and identity stuff and relationship stuff."

Kramer spoke about how the film was unique compared to others in the genre. She enjoys the sweet, feel-good Christmas movies, "But also I need some real, raw honesty because that's not my life." Then, the elephant in the room was discussed — the fact that "A Cowboy Christmas Romance" has a sex scene. 

Drew revealed that she wrote a very detailed script and detailed what she wanted to happen, beat-by-beat. "I put it all in there," Drew said. "So I was like, 'Don't take the steam and the sex away from me, I wrote it on purpose. I want it in there.'" Both Drew and Kramer were happy that those scenes were kept in the final draft of the script after Lifetime picked it up.

The spicy scene in "A Cowboy Christmas Romance" definitely caught the world's attention. Lifetime shared a clip from "Saturday Night Live" on Instagram when the show made a quip about the film's sex scene. During the "SNL" segment "Weekend Update," Michael Che struggled to make it through his line without laughing: "Next week, Lifetime will air their first Christmas movie featuring a sex scene. The sex scene will finally explain why Santa named that one reindeer Vixen. That's a weird name for a reindeer, man."

Despite the joke, Che was correct in that "A Cowboy Christmas Romance" was the first Lifetime Christmas movie to incorporate such a scene. Tia Maggini, Lifetime's SVP of scripted content, spoke with Variety about the love scene and told the outlet, "We think that there's an audience out there that's hungry for grown-up romance, and we're looking forward to adding some smolder to the usual holiday sugar and spice." 

Following the film's release, Maggini spoke with TV Insider and said, "We were delighted that the audience showed up for 'A Cowboy Christmas Romance,' proving once again that women love cowboys and women love romance — especially when they're together!" She added that the network hoped to develop more Christmas films with "slightly more mature themes, too," in addition to their usual fare. Fans of steamy romance likely won't be adding "A Cowboy Christmas Romance" to their list of worst Lifetime Christmas movies anytime soon.