Benjamin Ayres on Why We Love Christmas Movies and How Connecting with Fans Keeps the Holiday Spirit Alive

With Christmas in full swing on the Hallmark networks, stunning vacation motion pictures are coming in scorching and heavy.

Long Lost Christmas stars Taylor Cole and Benjamin Ayres in a narrative reminding us that this Christmas might be our final with anybody we love.

We had the alternative to catch up with Ben to speak about the film and an entire lot extra.

You do not need to be watching Hallmark to get your fill of Benjamin Ayres. This 12 months alone, he is been in a number of Hallmark productions, Family Law on The CW, The Bad Seed Returns on Lifetime, and The Kids in the Hall.

Ben says that whereas Hallmark operates in the vein of previous Hollywood’s studio system, for different roles, he is going by means of the audition course of.

With Hallmark, “You just get a phone call, and you’re matched up with somebody else. The first inquiry is ‘Who wrote it?’ ‘Who’s starring in it?’ ‘Who’s directing it?'”

“I made a joke the other day about it being the Batman signal. You’re just going about your day, and then a phone call happens, and the next week you’re in Vancouver starting a movie,” Ben laughed.

“The remainder of the time, you are simply auditioning and ready to search out out should you’ve booked it or should you’re near one thing. For instance, Family Law. I did an audition, and then I had a callback, and then they flew me from Toronto to Vancouver to do a chemistry learn with Jewel [Staite].

“Then I discovered simply sort of proper after that they wished me to be in BC for the summer time, which labored out effectively Because I used to be already doing the Hallmark tasks, and we prefer to spend our summers right here. So the entire household got here out and spent our summer time in BC, which we like to do.

“With Kids in the Hall, Mark McKinney is a pal of mine, and I simply acquired a telephone name, ‘Do you wish to…?’ And I stated, ‘Say no extra. I’ll actually stand in the… I’ll do nothing; I simply wish to see you guys make your artwork.’

“So I was very happy with the role, and it was a very intense experience, too, working on a comedy like that with such comedic legends. There was a lot of pressure, but Holy Moly was it fun!”

As you possibly can see from the tasks talked about, Ben’s expertise permits him to take on many various kinds of roles, which retains him recent. He considers himself fortunate in that regard, particularly since he was initially a comic book actor who nearly acquired pigeonholed in that enviornment.

“Comedy was all the time my factor. That’s what I all the time wished to do. I all the time wished to be on Saturday Night Live. I had a sketch comedy group. We did a number of comedy.

“It’s what I like now about Instagram; it is giving me an outlet to do comedic issues on my very own phrases and have a channel to place them on the market as a result of I do not get to do as many comedies as I used to.

After a run of comedy roles in Canada, he acquired an audition for the drama Saving Hope. “I keep in mind after I had auditioned for it, and the creators actually wished me for the position to play this physician in a dramatic sequence. The community was like, ‘Yeah, however he is the goofy, humorous man from these different exhibits.’

“And they had been like, ‘Well, I do not know him as a goofy, humorous man. So we similar to him as the dramatic actor that he’s.’ So I really feel like, at the proper time, I acquired out of being often called simply ‘The comedy man.’ I went into dramatic stuff, and now individuals are shocked that I do comedy.

“Because I’ve developed such relationships over the years in both dramatic and comedy worlds, like producers, writers, and directors, I get to bounce back and forth, and they see me as both. Even though every actor can do both to some degree, it’s that I’ve had a lot of experience in both that I seem to get calls for that.”

If you are a fan, you have seen how Ben leans on comedy as a lot as he cans, even when it is a Hallmark Movies & Mysteries manufacturing. “I imply, [The Chronicle Mysteries] perhaps not as a lot. When we had been doing that, it was just a little extra severe, and we made a concerted effort to do this.

“We were trying something a little different, but at the same time, for sure, if they’re comedic bits, we were reminding them I loved to do that stuff. So it’s impossible to write something on a page that doesn’t even have a small laugh. If there’s the ability for a laugh, I’ll find it and have fun doing it.”

When it involves Long Lost Christmas, Ben cherished the script. His daughter described it to him greatest.

“My daughter put it to me the different day as we had been strolling to high school, She’s 10 years previous, and she says it is, ‘You guys are selling Christmas motion pictures? Your Christmas film is popping out already? We simply completed Halloween.’ I stated, ‘I do know.’

“Then proper after, she goes, ‘But I get it as a result of it offers me such a heat, fuzzy feeling inside simply at the considered Christmas. It’s my favourite time of 12 months. I do not suppose it was someday, I consider it as many days as you may get out of that feeling inside.’

“She expressed what we all do who love Christmas movies, is you forget that that is baked in at such a young age, and to hear her express it in a way that we express it reminded me of just how, as I say, baked in it is. But also that it’s a real feeling of childhood joy.”

Ben was significantly drawn to the story of its message of household and hope.

“It’s going to be a wonderful film to watch with your friends and family, and maybe there’s a cousin or a brother or some relative who you don’t talk to as much as you wished you did. It’s going to inspire you to do that more. That’s something that I really loved about this movie in particular.”

Despite beginning vacation tasks early to get them accomplished in time for Christmas, Ben says it would not influence his pleasure of Christmas. While the Christmas components are there and the set designs are unimaginable, it would not have the identical feeling when in between pictures, they’re smack dab in the center of summer time.

“There are moments when it’s quite lovely. You’re like, ‘Oh, wow. This is beautiful.’ But you know it’s fake snow. It’s too hot out. It doesn’t feel right.”

Jake Out and About for Long Lost Christmas

If you observe Ben’s Instagram web page, you recognize that he isn’t kidding about shedding the Christmas feeling when the director calls reduce. He featured a number of posts of himself, Taylor, and her husband having a grand time swimming and boating. It’s not all the time that enjoyable on set, he says.

“There are two the reason why this one was this enjoyable. Taylor Cole. We simply acquired alongside from the get-go. We had so many laughs we could not preserve a straight face. It was the first time I’ve additionally labored with a co-star whose husband was there. So he and I actually acquired alongside, and we golfed all the time.

“My joke was Taylor was busy working. When she had day off, she acquired to return golf with us. And I used to be {golfing} day by day, and after I had day off, I needed to go work. So I spent a number of time {golfing} with Cameron.

“But the factor that made this one particularly very particular was that we shot it in Harrison Hot Springs, and all of us stayed there, solid and crew. So it felt like summer time camp. We had been on the market for 2 and a half weeks. There are solely a few eating places you possibly can go to. They would make dinners, I’d make dinners, we would go to one another’s locations, and all of us stayed collectively.

“It’s like this natural hot spring resort, so at night we’d wrap, and everybody would go to these pools that you can float around in. It was an experience I haven’t had on one of these, and I’ve had a lot of experiences on these. So it was like summer camp; it was so fun.”

Toasting the Holidays on Long Lost Christmas

It was so enjoyable that Ben even had time to have just a little extra of it with some Hallmark followers who had been watching them movie.

When he had a second, he turned on the digital camera and wandered up behind them, asking, “What are they filming over there?” When the couple circled, they acknowledged him, and they turned out to be nice followers of his work.

“Then I was so embarrassed that I was filming that. I turned it off, and then they were like, ‘I love you in Falling for Vermont. And ‘Oh, my favorite one is You, Me, and the Christmas Trees. We love Chronicles.’ The husband knew them all, and the speed at which they knew all the movies? I was just like, ‘You guys, that is so sweet.'”

While filming Family Law, Jewel urged him to get a TikTookay channel, and he uploaded the video there and on Instagram. To his shock, it went viral, constructing to nearly 50 million views between the channels.

“It’s blowing up. I opened my thing, it’s like all these comments and things. So there’s this book giveaway that I was doing because I got all of us to sign it, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to post it tomorrow. I want the community to help me find her, so we can send her the book. I think she really deserves it.”

Ben’s hope is that by means of his engaged on-line group, they’re going to be capable of monitor down his megafans to share with them the cast-signed copy of Long Lost Christmas by Joan Kilby. “It’s like our own little Hallmark Movies & Mystery mystery. So I need you to go out there and find her and let’s see if we can, and let’s give her a cool birthday present.”

In the meantime, Ben hopes that the movie Long Lost Christmas offers them the heat and fuzzy feeling his daughter so superbly expressed.

“I think that people are going to take away from the movie the fact that family is really important around the holidays, and you’re never too old or too young to find new love, and when we keep ourselves open, no matter what the experience, cool things happen.”