Last June, we had an Alison Sweeney threepeat with a two-part Barcelona-set romcom series and a new Hannah Swensen. Now, Sweeney is headlining a double feature, closing out Loveuary with Romance at Hope Ranch, a new Western-themed romance this Saturday, and kicking off March with another installment of her mystery franchise, “Sugar and Vice.” Earlier this month, I chatted with Sweeney about the pair of projects.
Hope Ranch was a bucket list’s worth of Sweeney’s favorite things. Set and filmed in Ruidoso, New Mexico, the film follows Hope, a new empty nester who gets her daughter, Maggie (played by Sweeney’s daughter Megan), set up at college and then lands at her new ranch, a passion project that marries horses and hosting visitors. Of course the property isn’t quite up to all the codes it needs to be as she preps for the Giddyup Gala, a beloved local event she decided to revive with a very short runway.
Thankfully, she has a super helpful neighbor, Tom (played by Scott Martin, who also produces), and much to her initial disappointment, the newly transplanted ex-boyfriend, Jack, who she left in the rearview mirror a decade earlier. Played by Hannah Swensen regular Gabriel Hogan, he’s actually in town specifically to win her back because her BFF, Lori (Stephanie Beran) who also happens to be his sister, tipped him off that she was moving there.
What could veer into a painful love triangle never gets off the plate because Tom and Lori take a shine to each other and Hope reconsiders why she let the relationship with Jack go. Especially when she learns he and her daughter have remained friends.
The film was developed by Sweeney and her producing partner Craig Baumgarten, written by fellow Hannah Swensen alumn Juliana Wimbles, and directed by Tailiah Breon. Sweeney loved the change of scenery with her first project in New Mexico and getting to work with two of her greatest loves, Megan and horses.
“It was a dream of a dream come true for me. And while it was happening, I thought, ‘I can’t believe this is really happening.’ I was taking in every moment, appreciating how lucky I felt to be in that moment to be galloping across the pasture on this beautiful horse. I just loved it every moment,” she shares.
“I’d been to Albuquerque a couple times, but certainly not to Ruidoso. That was all part of figuring out where we could shoot this and how to make it happen. And finding this beautiful farm was incredible. I just felt so blessed to have that all come together the way that it did and not too far from home. And it was really a special, special location.”
“Craig and I pitched the idea to Hallmark. And then Gabe actually came on board very early because he has a lot of experience doing westerns or Heartland-type stories. We had wanted to do a project like this together. We brought the idea to Hallmark, they loved it and bought it, and then we brought Juliana in to develop and write the script and the outline and make it happen. It was a good team effort.”
There’s a fun Hannah Swensen Easter egg in the film as a picture of Hannah and Norman makes an appearance. “It’s a behind the scenes photo that I took on my phone. I don’t remember whose idea it was. Maybe Craig said ‘You guys have known each other for 10 years. Don’t you have a picture from way back that we could put on the wall to represent their old relationship? And I went back and looked at my phone and sure enough, I took a picture of us together,” she laughs.
Martin came on board first as a fan, and then as a producer and co-star. “He’s a talented actor who does mostly action movies, and has a great resume of what he does. And then he and his wife love Hallmark. He is friends with Craig, and they’ve made action movies together,” she explains.
“He brought it up one time to Craig and said, ‘Hey, I know you do these Hallmark movies. Can you introduce me to Ali Sweeney? I would love to do something.’ So he came through that way, and he was our producing partner on this project. It was so fun to have him in the movie as well. That was his first time in a Hallmark movie and he did a great job.”
Having Megan join the cast came up after the script was in motion. “It actually came up in reverse. I developed this story and was working with everyone on the project, and it was my dream project. And in a lot of ways it reflects how much I grew up loving horses. And we wanted to have it be this idea of her hope. Starting the second chapter of her life,” she says.
“And when we were brainstorming, we thought, ‘When does that happen? What prompts someone?’ And then the other big thing for us was, she’s taking this chance and taking a risk, but it’s also not a terrible idea. It’s a great idea and she’s doing great at it. She’s not making the normal mistakes one might imagine in this kind of situation in a movie like this.”
“And so we wanted it to feel a little different. And part of that was that her kid has gone off to college. That’s a perfect time to say to yourself, ‘What do I wanna do now?’ And that’s how it came about, through the story first. We started [honing on it being a daughter] and then everyone started looking at me like, ‘There’s an obvious connection here, Ali,’ And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re right, but I’m not gonna speak for her. I have to go ask Megan if she wants to do this.’ And she was so excited and honored to be asked. So it was a lot of fun to have her.”
“She thought when I asked her that it was gonna be a little token, one line in the thing, and ‘Oh, there’s my kid.’ And then when she read the scenes, she said, ‘Oh, mom, this is a real part. I have a lot to do.’ And she was so honored and nervous and excited and just all the feelings you have when you’re taking on something new like this. She did a great job. It was definitely fun to have her on set. She was so strong and such a great addition to the cast, and she brought a lot of really fun, positive energy to the set every day. And it was sad when she wasn’t in the scenes, everyone would could come up to me and say, ‘I wish Megan was in the scene.'”
“She had school, so she would have to leave and go do her schoolwork and then come back. And it’s funny because of course I was on Days of Our Lives at the same age as she was doing this. And I said, ‘Believe me, I know, how you feel more than most.”
Hogan gets to play very much against the Norman he’s known and beloved for, and brace yourselves, Hallmarkies, because the gun show is on full display. “It was written knowing it was Gabe, and Juliana knows his voice and tried to bring out that. But he’s such a talented actor. He can do anything,” she points out.
“And so I think that was part of it, too. When he is Norman, he is the nerdy dentist, and that’s such a fun character for him because it is so different from what he does in some of the other stuff. For us in our world, it’s the first time we get to see him playing that romantic lead and being the hero and still being the quirky funny, guy that she’s known so long. But to see it in a different way, it was great.”
Sweeney was thrilled to participate in the second season of Finding Mr. Christmas, guesting in the third episode, “Riding Into Christmas,” which you can catch now on Hallmark+. “Jonathan Bennett has done such a great job. He and Melissa are great. When they asked me to come do the horse scene, I had not yet filmed Hope Ranch. So I thought, ‘Oh, this is actually like good setup for what’s gonna happen,'” she recalls.
“And I told Jonathan that, and he’s the one who envisioned this into being, he made it happen for me. He set it all in motion to do that first. I was a little nervous because I’m the one who’s supposed to be like the pro and everyone’s sort of like, ‘Oh, she knows how to ride horses.'”
“Then I had to do the scene eight times getting on and off the horse and fixing the reins And as actors, we always laugh about walking and talking at the same time, never mind mounting a horse, and doing all that is a lot. So it was just funny to then to feel the pressure of being the one who’s supposed to be good at it, it was a lot. Those actors were great.
“I couldn’t believe how many of them had never been near a horse before. And then they did a great job. They were very impressive. But I will say the best part for me was there’s one shot they did where I got to gallop away from the camera and I was like, ‘I’ll do that a couple times if you want me to, if you didn’t get it the first take, I’m happy to try that one again.'”
Romance at Hope Ranch premieres Saturday, February 28th, on Hallmark Channel in the US and W Network in Canada and streaming on various outlets in the US. It will also be streaming the next day on Hallmark+ in the US and StackTV in Canada. Here are a couple of sneak peeks. Check back next week for the rest of my interview and a preview of Sugar and Vice: A Hannah Swensen Mystery, which premieres on March 7th.
Photos courtesy of Vault Entertainment and Hallmark Media; video courtesy of Hallmark Media.
