Alison Sweeney & Ashley Williams Team Up for Spanish Adventure in Two New Hallmark Films

Alison Sweeney is headed abroad for a new project for Hallmark Channel. The actress, who previously went on location in Greece and Bulgaria in 2022 as part of The Wedding Veil trilogy, will be traveling to Spain to film two movies co-starring Ashley Williams. “As cool as the location is, I am going to be working with Ashley, who is a dear friend and a hilarious, fantastic actress whom I adore working with,” enthuses Sweeney.

The collaboration between the two Hallmark faves took shape one night after an event for the network and has been in the making for a while. “We have been planning this for years,” reports Sweeney. “We were at a Hallmark event three years ago, maybe longer, and talking about wanting to work together. Ashley has a great origin story of how she came up with this idea, but she said to me, ‘Ali, do you speak another language?’ And I said, ‘Well, I speak Spanish.’ And then she immediately launched into her idea and we kind of developed it a little bit together.”

The films will be written by Julie Sherman Wolfe, who recently penned the Christmas movie hit, Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story, as well as a slew of other yuletide favorites. “At the time, Julie had just been celebrating the premiere of one of her fantastic Christmas movies,” adds Sweeney. “And it was one of Hallmark’s best movies that year. So, the three of us started brainstorming together, and this wonderful idea evolved, and then we pitched it to Hallmark together. And it’s one of those amazing things, like, here we are and now it’s actually happening. It’s so cool.”

Filming abroad will begin next month, and the actress has her passport at the ready. “We’re shooting in February and March in different parts of Spain,” Sweeney previews. “And I’m really excited and looking forward to that.”

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Production, however, is already underway. “You happened to catch me right after my wardrobe fitting,” Sweeney shares. “And Ashley and I had this amazing experience at the wardrobe fitting. It’s one thing to read about your character on a piece of paper, and Julie certainly wrote these great characters, but there’s something about the wardrobe fitting, seeing the costumes on you, looking in the mirror, and seeing someone else, that immediately gets you so excited. This character is not at all like me, and not like any other character I have played, so it really stands out with the wardrobe. You just start to get all these ideas, and it really brings the character to life for me in my mind.”

As her next movie for Hallmark Mystery, Reality Bites: A Hannah Swensen Mystery, is set to premiere on February 6 at 8/7c, Sweeney is also thinking about the challenges she may face once the cameras start rolling in Spain. “I’m really thrilled about this, and looking forward to filming in a new country and practicing my Spanish,” she says. “I mean, I talk a big game and have definitely thought I was good at it, but now I have to act in Spanish, I have to talk to people in Spanish and we’ll see how I do!”