I don’t remember when I first noticed Matt Hamilton, but I’m sure it was a Hallmark movie that brought him to my attention. Since his appearance in one of the Gourmet Detective films, I have been closely following his career. In recent times, his significant works have been steadily increasing, and this season, we have the opportunity to see him in action in three entertaining holiday movies. In celebration of that fact, I was happy to get to chat with Matt recently in spite of his busy schedule.
Photo Credit: Callum Gunn
RH: Matt, it’s so nice to chat with you again! It’s been quite a while since we did our last interview.
MH: Ruth, nice to chat with you too. And yes, it has been a while. Gourmet Detective, right?
Yes, and of course, you’ve done a lot of stuff since then. I mean, you popped up in Truly, Madly, Sweetly this past fall. So Hallmark viewers got to see you in that.
Yeah, that was another one with Dylan {Neal}.
Yes, a small role, but a role you certainly could not ignore.
With Dylan Neal
You know, since Gourmet Detective, that’s when Dylan and I became buddies. We’ve stayed in contact, and when he does come up to Vancouver, we meet up and hang out. He came up to do pre-production on that movie, and we chatted about it. Interestingly enough, I had an audition for that movie three days later. So there was Dylan, and in his typical fashion, he said, “There aren’t really any big roles for you in this movie.” He was so apologetic that the role wasn’t bigger, but I was like, “Hey, Dylan, what are you apologizing for? You gave me a job! That’s great!” I was a couple days on set, and it was a pretty typical role, but it was fun to play a smarmy celebrity chef.
Matt, you certainly have the right attitude about it. My understanding is that as a working actor, any day you get a job, that’s a good day.
From Truly, Madly, Sweetly
Yeah, exactly. Better than not working. Obviously, it’s always nice to have a bigger role and get more stuff that you can play around with or do something with, but at the end of the day, a job’s a job. And getting to work with friends and in a positive environment is fantastic. After all, Vancouver is an expensive place to live.
I have heard the exact same thing from other actor friends of mine. Now, Hallmark viewers recently got to see you recently in Homegrown Christmas. In fact, I met Kate Isaac shortly after her part on that film wrapped, and I think that prompted me to reach out to you for a follow-up interview. I seem to remember that she mentioned you. And even more amazing, Lori Loughlin is in this one, so that will be a big movie.
Yeah, everything Lori does always turns into a big thing. And of course, she’s great. I love her a lot.
I was going to say that was the first thing you did with her, but I remember you were in a Garage Sale Mystery episode too.
from Garage Sale Mystery
That’s right. I had worked with Lori before.
And we also saw you in Cooking With Love earlier this year.
Yes, that was a fun one with Ali Liebert. I played an overly excited firefighter who loves to cook. Originally, my character had a bit bigger role in the film, but unfortunately, there was some good stuff that had to be cut out. But as we know, that’s part of what happens in this business.
Oh, yes, I don’t think there’s a single person in the business who hasn’t had that happen to them at some point. And then you were in one of the Aurora Teagarden films.
From Aurora Teagarden
Yes, Last Scene Alive. And that was a great one. We shot that at this really cool mine up in Britannia Beach, which is an hour north of Vancouver. It’s basically on the way to Whistler, and there is this old, shut-down mine, and it was really, really cool. And such a great cast on that as well. Candace {Cameron Bure} is one of the most popular women on the planet. She and Lori do so much stuff. But Candace was doing The View, Fuller House, and all these Aurora Teagarden movies. She was always going back and forth between Vancouver and LA. But she is great, and her attitude is always really great on set. And she’s also very nice and professional. And my buddy, Andrew Dunbar, was in that.
Yes, he was. I recall his role quite well.
Right, as you would. That one was a lot of fun. I got to play the dumb actor. Martin Wood directed that one, and he is a really fun director to work with.
While I’ve never had any real interactions with Martin, I have heard over and over how much fun he is to work with.
He is. And he’s one of these guys who never gets stressed out. You know what I mean? Directing is a hard job, and you don’t have a lot of days to shoot these movies. You have fifteen days to get a lot of stuff done. Whereas with a feature film, you might have thirty or more days to shoot it and get everything done. But with these, you only have fifteen. You got through a lot of pages and scenes in a day, and sometimes directors get annoyed and patience runs low. And we understand how that can happen. As an actor, you might almost expect that to happen on set once in a while. But Martin is not like that. He always handled everything well, and his attitude was always really funny. He was always telling jokes. And his attitude permeated the set.
It seems like Hallmark consistently hires those kinds of directors. Or at least, those kinds of directors are in their core group. And I know Martin is one of those favorites. Just like the pool of actors they have and like to use over and over again. And you, Matt, happen to be one of those.
From Cooking With Love
And while we’re talking about directors, Jem Garrard, who directed Cooking With Love, she is another one who is just a gem. I really liked her.
Oh, yeah, she directed Christmas At Holly Lodge, and the people I talked to from that film really liked her too.
That’s good to know. I am a huge fan of hers. I would love to work with her again.
So you are technically in a total of three Christmas movies, I see. Two have already premiered in the U.S., and one premieres later this season.
Yes, that is correct.
We’ve mentioned Homegrown Christmas, but let’s talk about your role a bit. What is the story of this film?
From Homegrown Christmas
My character is the husband of Kate’s character. And this movie is your classic Hallmark Christmas movie. Lori plays this big city businesswoman who’s just sold her shoe company. She’s the kind of person who never comes home for Christmas. She usually only takes one day to briefly say “hi” to everyone at Christmas, but this year, she decides to stay around a bit longer. Her high school sweetheart is in the town. She and her sister–the role Kate plays–have a relationship that needs some work. It’s a cute, heartwarming story that also has its funny moments.
Oh, and Lori’s daughter was in this one too.
Yeah, Bella {Giannulli} was there, and I think she’s gonna start acting more. She was awesome. And Gwynyth Walsh is in it too, and she’s really great. She was a lot of fun to be around. Every day on set was just a blast Victor Webster is in it too, and he plays the lead. I worked with him on Continuum. That’s an old science fiction TV show some of the fans might know. Victor is one of my favorite dudes. At the wrap party, I told him about working on Continuum. I was only in the last couple of episodes of that show. I mean, this guy has been acting forever. He used to do soap operas. He’s got a great career and he’s been acting so long. Sometimes you see these guys and their attitudes are kind of a bit arrogant, but he’s the most down-to-earth guy.
I love hearing that about these actors that work for Hallmark. I hear it a lot, and I think Hallmark picks their casts very well. And I also know Victor is popular with a lot of the Hallmark female fans.
With Victor Webster
Yeah, he’s six foot four, really handsome. He’s in great shape. He does mixed martial arts and stuff like that. So yeah, he’s very popular with the women.
He is regularly hailed as a favorite leading man amongst the women. And the movie was just so much fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it. So there’s Victor and then Lori, who never ages!
Yeah, that is so right. And it’s not one of these situations where she has had all this work done or where you can tell they are trying to make her look younger. I grew up watching her on Full House. And now I’ve gotten to work with her a couple of times, and she’s so sweet. I was only set for Garage Sale Mystery one day, and that was about three years ago. When I showed up for Homegrown Christmas, she said, “Hey, Matt, good to see you again!” And immediately in my head I was like, “Get the heck out of here! You don’t remember me!” I mean, she’s worked with a million people since then! But she was like, “No, no, it’s you! When I saw your audition tape, I remembered I had worked with you.” And I have to say that was very nice! On this one, I was on set for around five days. And all the days were with her. And she’s just a lot of fun. She puts up with me because I run my mouth a lot, and she’s got a great sense of humor.
Yeah, she does. She “puts up” with a lot of personalities, but I don’t think she minds. She just seems to roll with everything, and she’s still so professional.
With Lori Loughlin
You know, another thing that’s great about her is this. When you do these movies, during the tough days or whatever, sometimes the “movie star” has to put their foot down on something. And that doesn’t mean you’re being a jerk. It’s more, “Hey, guys, we need to do this.” And she could do that because she’s a big star. But there was one time where she didn’t really want to do this one thing in the script, and she was so slick. Instead of being a celebrity and being a bit pushy, she was like, “Is there another way we can do this? I don’t know if this is working. I think there might be a better way to do this.” It was something very small, but the way she went about it was so sweet and adorable. She was overly kind when she could have said, “No, I don’t want to do this. I’m not doing this.” So that was great. And Victor…same thing. It was a high stress day, and we had planes flying overhead and it was a busy day. People were starting to get stressed, and he was like, “It’s all right, everyone. It’s okay. Let’s stay with it. We’re all good.” And that kind of thing calms everyone on set when you’re two leads are patient. And Mel Damski directed it. He has a great sense of humor, and he had a great attitude on set.
Now in addition to Homegrown Christmas, you have two Lifetime holiday movies.
Yes, that is correct.
One has already premiered, Santa’s Boots. I haven’t had a chance to see it yet, but it looks like a really fun one.
Santa’s Boots
Yeah, it is. I play the best friend of the main character. I’m like his confidant and buddy, so we had a lot of fun scenes together. They let me improv a lot and change stuff, so it was a lot of fun. I think this one is gonna be a blast for the viewers.
Oh, that’s great to hear. I know it sounds like a Santa Claus type story, and I always like those. And then it’s got you, and Teryl {Rothery}, Andrea {Brooks}, and Christian Convery.
Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of familiar faces in Santa’s Boots. I know I did a couple of movies with Garry Chalk.
Oh, yeah, that guy’s a legend.
Oh, man, I watched a movie just the other night, and he was in it! So right away, I knew it had to be filmed in Vancouver, and I was right. It was filmed just outside of Vancouver.
So I understand you’re in a New Year’s film for Lifetime as well.
New Year’s Kiss
Yeah, I’m not certain of the exact air date. But it’s called New Year’s Kiss. We shot it on Vancouver Island. The director is a buddy of mine– David Langlois, and I’ve worked with him before. He’s awesome to work with. And they let me do a ton of improv on this one. Again, I play the best friend of the main character. Robin Dunne is the lead, and I worked with him on Aurora Teagarden. On that shoot, we only had like one day together on set, so we didn’t really work together much. But on New Year’s Kiss, we had all our days together. We got along like long-lost brothers. It was so fun working with him. Erin Karpluk was the other lead, and she was a blast to work with too. And Karis Cameron is in it too. It was awesome to work with all three of those actors, and lots of times, it felt like just the four of us working together in this small town in Duncan, BC on Vancouver Island. It was a lot of fun.
I’m really hoping both Lifetime ones turn out well. Both of those movies had bigger roles for me. And I know that’s not the most important thing, but when you have a bigger role, you get to spread your wings a bit and carve out a character. When you have a smaller role, you can be memorable, but you don’t get to create the role as much. Your job is just to go in and do your thing, and it’s always fun to do that.
New Year’s Kiss
I get it. You’re grateful for any role, and you always make the most of every role. But it’s nice to have a role where you have more to work with. Well, I’m a huge fan of Robin’s, so now I’m really looking forward to this one! So in addition to these, do you have any other works coming up that you can mention?
I did a couple of Lifetime thrillers. I’m not sure when they come out. The Wrong Patient is one of them. And College Dating App. I’m sure that name will change.
I kind of guessed it might.
With Peter Benson
And there’s also Besties, which I think might have changed names already. I think they’re calling it Best Friend’s Betrayal.
Peter Benson is the lead in The Wrong Patient. I had actually auditioned for his role, and the director really liked my audition. So he offered me the role of this salesman guy who is only in one scene, but it was my audition scene for the main character. It was a fun scene. And then I found out Peter had gotten the lead, and I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do it for sure.” I love Peter, and it was a fun scene.
Same thing with College Dating App. It’s basically a young college movie, and I play a lawyer who tries to go on a date with a young girl. So I’m kind of like the jerk. But I worked with the director, David on New Year’s Kiss and a project of mine that’s not out yet. He’s awesome, so that was a fun one.
In Besties {Best Friend’s Betrayal}, I had worked with Jaime {Callica} before years ago, and we’re buds. I played the ex-husband of the main character. I’m trying to get back together with her, but I have a drinking problem.
Well, we know to keep an eye out for these films. I had heard that The Wrong Patient might be out later this month, but we’ll see. But till then, it’s good to know you’ve got three holiday movies to watch. Thank you so much for your time, Matt.
Ruth, thank you always for reaching out. And I hope that everyone tunes in and really enjoys the films.
Photo Credit: Callum Gunn
The thing I appreciate most about Matt is his incredible attitude. While most working actors in Vancouver understand that they may never have the kind of name recognition and major roles that actors from LA do, a few do tend to tout their importance in a more prominent way than is warranted. All too often, these younger opportunists don’t last long in the business because they have entered the profession for the wrong reasons. Thankfully, Matt’s attitude and willingness to give his all to every project has afforded him a myriad of opportunities in a wide variety of roles. In addition to that, he has labored intensively to build and maintain relationships with solid people in the business whom he respects and venerates, and they, in turn, remember him and even furnish him with some much-desired freedom in his roles. Matt’s talent is irrefutable, and his penchant for humor is readily apparent no matter the network on which he is featured.
I hope that everyone will watch for all his upcoming works, but pay special attention to when a New Year’s Kiss premiere date is finally announced (I hope they don’t hold it until next year!). If you missed Homegrown Christmas on the Hallmark Channel last weekend, be sure that you look it up for future air dates between now and the end of the season. (I am not sure when this film will air in Canada as of yet.) And if you missed Santa’s Boots, be sure that you check out Lifetime for additional showings. Canadian viewers can check out Super Channel Heart & Home tomorrow (12/16) for the Canadian premiere! I hope that everyone also makes an effort to visit Matt’s links below and consider following him where applicable. As his career continues its upward spiral, we can rest assured that Matt will continue his pursuit of excellence in all his works–past, present, and future–and we can hope to witness his prowess in a diversity of genres across an array of networks for many more years to come!
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Canadian Premiere: December 16th Super Channel Heart & Home
