The Stunning Transformation Of Hallmark Star Brendan Penny

Anyone whose television is typically tuned to Hallmark Channel should have no difficulty recognizing Brendan Penny. After all, the Canadian-born actor has appeared in numerous made-for-TV movies airing on the channel, and has also starred in a Hallmark-branded series. He's appeared in numerous rom-coms — including a series of movies opposite fellow Hallmark star Rachael Leigh Cook — and headlined his share of Hallmark holiday movies, including "'Tis the Season for Love," "A Private Princess Christmas, and "Magical Christmas Ornaments," to name a few. He's even branched out with Hallmark movies celebrating other holidays, with "Easter Under Wraps." 

Meanwhile, TV watchers whose viewing habits extend beyond Hallmark Channel will recognize Penny from a wide range of projects, including the mid-2010s TV cop show "Motive," the reboot series "BH90210" that reunited the cast of iconic teen drama "Beverly Hills, 90210," and such films as "Fifty Shades Freed," and "The A Team." Over the years, he's built up a pretty solid resume of acting work, with the promise of plenty more to come. To find out how he got there, keep reading to experience the stunning transformation of Hallmark star Brendan Penny.

Born in Canada's capital, Ottawa, Brendan Penny experienced a fairly typical upbringing. He was also a born entertainer, and as a kid became obsessed with "Star Wars" — to the point that he'd memorized the dialogue so well that he'd stick a VHS tape in the VCR, hit the mute button, and recite the entire movie from memory. 

He was also something of a class clown, and would put together comedy routines for high school assemblies; he'd even considered, for a time, pursuing stand-up comedy after graduating. His father, however, was adamant that Penny attend college, and he graduated with a degree in accounting. 

Accounting was never his dream, but he also didn't really have anything else he saw himself doing to make a living. Penny knew deep down he was not meant to be an accountant, however he had no idea what he wanted to do for a living. His father suggested he give acting a shot. In 2002, Penny moved from Ottawa to Vancouver, a hotbed of TV and movie production, to see if he could figure out how to launch an acting career. "I had zero acting experience," he told the Ottawa Sun. "I had 3,000 bucks in my pocket and bought a one-way ticket so I didn't have a fallback."

Having set himself up in Vancouver, Brendan Penny had no idea how to begin the process of becoming an actor. He'd only been in the city for a few days when, while working out at a gym, he found himself eavesdropping on a conversation between Erin Karpluk and Kevin Durand, both Vancouver-based working actors. He introduced himself, and they told him to sign up at the Lyric School of Acting, where he spent the next two years learning the craft. 

"I didn't even take my first acting class until I was 23, and I was bad, really bad, like stinky-bad," Penny recalled in an interview with The Morton Report. "So I kind of fell into the profession, but as soon as I began to seriously pursue it I became quite passionate about it and then all my focus turned to acting." In 2003, he landed his first role, a bit part as a skater in the Vancouver-shot teen drama "Jake 2.0." More small roles followed, including some episodes of "The L Word," and then his first film, "John Tucker Must Die." His big break, however, was just around the corner.

In 2006, Brendan Penny was cast in the Canadian TV series "Whistler," set in the titular ski resort situated about 90 minutes outside Vancouver. This time, it wasn't a small, insignificant role; he was cast as a series regular, playing distressed rich kid A.J. Varland. "A.J. is a nice kid and he's definitely troubled. He can be moody at times, but he's really nice as well," Penny said of his character in an interview with Starry Mag. "As soon as I read the breakdown, I knew I had to be a part of it!"

Around the same time, he auditioned for a guest-starring role in The CW's spooky drama "Supernatural." On his first day on the set, he met "Supernatural" star Jensen Ackles, who asked him how long he'd been acting. "And he kinda asked me about work and I said, 'Actually, I just booked my first series regular role yesterday,'" Penny recalled when interviewed for TV Goodness. "And he quieted down the crew. He said, 'Alright, everyone listen up. This guy just booked his first series regular.' He raised my hand in the air and [everyone] clapped for me. And it was the nicest thing for a young actor to have had happen to him in those early stages."

Even if "Whistler" had lasted longer than the single season it aired, Penny's time on the show would have been up at the end of the season anyhow. "I played a young rich kid who had everything and then ends up becoming a crystal meth addict," he told The Morton Report. "His life then starts to fall apart and the season finale ends with him committing suicide."

For Brendan Penny, his role in "Whistler" was a game-changer. "I hold no job higher than that one," he told The Morton Report. "It was the greatest experience I've ever had and it taught me so much as far as working consistently almost every day on a set and being around all these incredibly talented actors. I grew so much and loved every minute of it."

After his single season on "Whistler," Brendan Penny's acting career really started heating up. More TV guest spots followed, in such series as "Smallville," "Stargate: Atlantis," and "Flashpoint." He also appeared as a hostage-taker in the Lifetime movie "Held Hostage" and in some feature films, including the Dwayne Johnson film "The Tooth Fairy," and "The A-Team." He was also the star of his first series — albeit one that appeared online, not on TV — called "The Runner," in which he played a vlogger who goes on the lam after he's arrested for a murder he didn't commit.

In 2014, he made his first movie for Hallmark Channel, "Along Came a Nanny." It would not be his last, and before long, he graduated from supporting roles to leading roles. First, however, came another regular gig in a TV cop show.

In 2013, Brendan Penny read a script for a new Canadian-made police procedural, "Motive." The show boasted a major twist that set it apart from other TV crime dramas: it wasn't a "whodunit," but a "whydunit," with killer and victim both identified at the start of each episode and the ensuing police investigation uncovering the motive behind the crime. Penny was cast as one of the cops, Detective Brian Lucas. "As an actor, you read plenty of scripts, but in this case I wanted to turn every page, which is a really good sign," Penny told The Morton Report. "So the whole thing just grabbed me and I really liked the character."

While Penny was hardly a neophyte when he took on the role, it did present a career first for him. "This is the first police officer role I've played," he told the Ottawa Sun, revealing he researched the role by interviewing some actual Vancouver police officers. "We did some Q&A's with the Vancouver Police Department with their detectives to learn about the procedural part of police work. I just really try to make my character as human as possible and the work just kind of shows you that he's a cop.

"Motive" became a TV hit, running for four seasons (two of which were picked up by an American network, ABC). Speaking with the Vancouver Sun, Penny shared his theory on why the show had connected with viewers, despite its scarcity of action. "It may not be as dynamic as some of the other shows... We barely draw our weapons," he said. "'Motive' is about people and their motives, the psychology of what's going and what's happening inside."

Fans don't know a whole lot about Brendan Penny's personal life, mostly because he tends not to share much about it. "I'm fairly private. If you look at my Instagram, I don't post anything with my family," he told TV Goodness in 2023. "I like to keep that to myself." In 2013, Penny shared a post on Instagram, featuring a screenshot of a text conversation with someone identified as "Babers." In the caption, Penny wrote, "I love my wife" — the first time he'd acknowledged on social media that he had a spouse. 

While Penny has mostly maintained his intention of not opening up his personal life to the world, he made another rare exception in a 2023 interview with Just Jared. While promoting his Hallmark movie, "The Wedding Cottage," he shared some details about his own nuptials with his wife, Lisa. "We actually got married in the Okanagan, which is in interior British Columbia in the summer on a family friends' place," Penny recalled. "They allowed us to get married at their house and we had a very nice small wedding right on the water and it was, it was beautiful." 

According to Us Weekly, Penny has been married since 2010, and has two children. In 2015, he shared a photo on X, formerly Twitter, of one of them, still a baby, sitting on his lap while wearing infant-sized headphones. "I never tweet family pics...but come on!" he wrote in the caption. 

Supporting roles in Hallmark Channel's 2014 film "Along Came a Nanny," and, in 2015's "Gourmet Detective: A Healthy Place to Die," led Brendan Penny to a starring role that same year in his first holiday movie, "'Tis the Season for Love." In that film, he played the small-town love interest for a character played by Sarah Lancaster. 

From then on, Penny became a leading man in Hallmark Channel rom-coms. He played a hunky chef opposite Jen Lilley in "A Dash of Love," a guy who lives next door to a woman who loses her Christmas spirit in "Magical Christmas Ornaments," and even wooed fellow stunning Hallmark staple Lacey Chabert in "Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe." 

While Hallmark Channel clearly appreciates Penny's work, that respect is mutual. "They've treated me so incredibly well," Penny told TV Goodness. "They've been so kind and I'm very appreciative. I'm very fortunate to have had the luck and the career that I've had with them over this last little while and I really hope to continue again. I'm really grateful for them."

For Brendan Penny's next stint as a series regular on a TV show, he kept it within the Hallmark Channel family. In 2016, he joined Hallmark family drama "Chesapeake Shores," playing a member of the sprawling O'Brien family. He remained with the series throughout its six-season run, until its conclusion in 2022.

"It's quite interesting because that we did six seasons of that show, which is, it's a fairly long run for a TV show, and we were very fortunate to get that much time out of it," Penny reflected when interviewed for Just Jared. While he conceded that pausing production for an extended period of time during the pandemic was a challenge, at the end of the day he still felt that working on "Chesapeake Shores" was "such a great experience and it was so fun to shoot and I got great relationships out of that show."

Penny reiterated that when discussing the series' finale with the Express. "There's certain cast members that I mean, you do six seasons of a TV show you become close and there are some absolutely amazing people," he said.

The same year that "Chesapeake Shores" debuted, Brendan Penny co-starred with another Hallmark veteran, Rachael Leigh Cook, for the rom-com "Autumn in the Vineyard." With Penny and Cook playing former teenage sweethearts who find themselves working together in a vineyard, the chemistry between the two proved to be winning. A sequel was made the following year, 2017's "Summer in the Vineyard." That movie also proved to be a hit with viewers, and a Hallmark Channel movie franchise was born when a third film, "Valentine in the Vineyard," arrived in 2019. 

"The story is, you know, it's very dramatic and very serious, but there's a lot of room for comedy, for comedic moments," Penny said of the latter movie in a Hallmark Channel interview. "I think, love, you can't have it without comedic moments, and I think it adds a nice depth. You see that their relationship has deepened, and they're really comfortable with each other. It's fun."

While fans were certainly hoping for another film — "Christmas in the Vineyard" would practically write itself, right? — Penny dashed those hopes when he was asked by the Express whether there would be another one. "No, I don't think so," he said, while also heaping praise on his co-star. "I mean, those were so fun to do and Rachael Leigh Cook is another person that's just so lovely," he said. "She's so good and funny, she was a dream to work with as well."

Brendan Penny jumped from Hallmark Channel to the Fox television network when he landed a role in the meta comedy series "BH90210," a "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-style romp in which the OG stars of "Beverly Hills, 90210" play themselves, attempting to get a reboot off the ground. In the 2019 series, Penny played Wyatt Jackson, a bodyguard for celebrities who's hired by "90210" alum Jennie Garth, and winds up becoming her love interest. So enamored was Wyatt of his client that he even got her initials tattooed on his chest. "It was an honor to share the screen with [Jennie Garth] on [BH90210]," Penny wrote in the caption to an Instagram post in which he's seen posing with Garth, pointing to his inked pec. "But now what am I supposed to do with this new tattoo? Poor Wyatt," he added.

While Fox declined to pick up the show for a second season, Garth and co-star Tori Spelling — who were also the show's producers — revealed they already had some storylines in mind to follow the season's cliffhanger ending. "In our minds, writing the last episode was foreshadowing another season," Spelling told Entertainment Weekly. "Going forward, the second season would be more laser-focused on the reboot. So the fans would get a much bigger percentage of us playing ourselves and our characters from the original "90210" as we would dive into what the reboot would look like."

After the cancellation of "BH90210" in 2019, Brendan Penny continued making rom-com movies for Hallmark Channel. These included playing a pastry chef in "The Secret Ingredient," a magazine reporter in "A Little Christmas Charm," the nurse to an amnesiac woman in "Time for Them to Come Home for Christmas," and appearing opposite Hallmark perennial Erin Krakow (star of Hallmark mega-hit "When Calls the Heart") in "The Wedding Cottage," to name just a few.

In 2024, Penny starred in the first movie in a planned series for the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel, "Family Practice Mysteries." Clearly, Penny's long association with Hallmark Channel is on solid ground, and Penny is hopeful that it stays that way. "I'll do Hallmark movies for the rest of my life if they let me," he declared in an interview with TV Goodness. "It's always some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Everybody is there to have a good time and do a good job and to make something that makes people feel good. I laughed so completely on every single one of those movies."