Aimee Garcia is Birdie Case and Paul Campbell is Alden in THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING | ©2024 Hallmark
When it’s time to publicize THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING, actor Paul Campbell is committed. How committed? Campbell’s character, amateur sleuth Alden Case, loves disguises and alter egos. When Campbell appears on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries panel at the Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, he is introduced, by name, as “Paul Campbell.”
With a flourish, Campbell indicates his fake moustache. “I think you mean Saul Campbell!” But, when asked a question, he cannot lie. ““I have to come clean. It was me the whole time, Paul Campbell.”
Fellow panelists feign astonishment. “I had no idea,” says Alison Sweeney, who stars in ONE BAD APPLE: A HANNAH SWENSEN MYSTERY.
Luke Macfarlane of CRIMETIME: FREEFALL expresses gratitude for this revelation. “Oh, thank you, Paul.”
“Sorry, guys,” Campbell apologizes, “I don’t like to pull pranks like that, but this just felt too good.”
A little later in the day, Hallmark hosts a luncheon for its panelists and TCA members. Campbell – who is also known for his years as Billy Keikeya on Syfy’s BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA series – sits down to talk more about THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING. The telefilm premieres Friday, September 13, on Hallmark’s Movies & Mysteries channel.
For starters, whose idea was “Saul Campbell”?
“It was completely my idea,” Campbell explains. “My plan was to not tell anybody about it, and just roll onto the stage wearing the moustache. And then, last night, we were talking a little bit about what today was going to be, and I thought, ‘They’re launching a whole new direction for Hallmark Mysteries. Maybe the tone of this isn’t Paul wears a hat and moustache.’
“So, I talked to Lisa [Hamilton Daly, Hallmark’s executive vice-president of programming], who was immediately on board, and I talked to Annie Howell, our head of communications. She was also like, ‘That’s a fantastic idea.’ And it sort of reaffirmed, oh, I’m at home. I’ve found my home here. The people at the top of this show, running the whole thing, are going, ‘You should absolutely wear your stupid costume on stage.’ It’s a very big deal. Perfect. I’m never going to go anywhere else, I’m so happy here.”
For that matter, Campbell adds that he’s having a great time at TCA. “It’s wonderful. Honestly, I think Hallmark throws the best events. Everybody’s taken care of. I love talking about what I do, I love talking to people that also enjoy what we do, I love spending time with my friends. I’m in my element here.”
Campbell has starred in over a dozen films for Hallmark, including the original 2023 THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE. Additionally, he has written or co-written several telefilms for the network, primarily focused on Christmas, such as THREE WISE MEN AND A BABY and AN UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS.
Does working so much with Hallmark feel at all like being part of a theatrical repertory company?
“A little bit, yeah. In the best way. I think the mistake is to ever sit back and get lazy. As long as we’re coming at every movie trying to reinvent ourselves, and not say, ‘Oh, I’ve already played [someone like] this character seven different times,’ you try to bring something new and unique that’s probably much more entertaining.
“But absolutely, it does feel like a part of a rep company. Among my very, very good friends, I would say the majority of them are Hallmark actors, people that I’ve either worked with, or I’ve just gotten to know over the years at various events and conventions. We are really like a tight-knit family. When you have three weeks to shoot a movie, you don’t have time to get to know somebody. When you know the person you’re acting with, the chemistry, the shortcuts, the familiarity, it all plays into what you’re doing. I think it’s kind of a necessary part of what we’re doing.”
Not that this implies job security. “Nothing is ever guaranteed. I think that’s baked into you as an actor from Day One.”
But, “I think there’s an awareness that, just by virtue of coming back year after year in a new Christmas, and other movies, that you are enjoyed as an actor at the network. There’s a really good relationship – a lot of the actors have really good relationships with the fans, so you can often get the temperature of how you’re being perceived in your films.
“And Hallmark has uniquely built what feels like an old studio system, where I think there is something about the familiarity of the actors that is part of this feeling that they bring to the fans. The familiarity is what keeps fans coming back. There’s safeness and comfort in familiarity for people, which I think it’s why it’s so effective in constantly using the same actors over and over. Are we bulletproof? No. Could tomorrow’s job be my last? Maybe. That’s not the sense that I get.”
Aimee Garcia is Birdie Case and Paul Campbell is Alden in THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING | ©2024 Hallmark
When the original THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE was being made, did Campbell get the sense that he was starring in the pilot for a franchise?
“No, it didn’t really feel like filming a pilot. The hope is always that it will continue. When you film it, there’s always the idea that, if this were to go on for a hundred episodes, you would be thrilled. But we did leave off the initial movie on a, ‘Well, there could be more.’
“But also, that’s very in keeping with the typical happy ending of a Hallmark movie, where you go, ‘Oh, there’s new love, there are new adventures ahead.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a pilot. So, when we filmed it, we filmed it as if it were a standalone, with the hope that down the road, more would come. And it seems like that’s the case – no pun intended.”
In THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE and THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING, Campbell stars opposite Aimee Garcia, who plays Alden’s wife Birdie. What is the relationship like between their characters?
“It’s incredible. One of the things we get to do that’s so unique is, we’re married, and we’re deep into our marriage. I don’t know if we ever established how long we’ve been married, but I feel like it’s five to ten years. So, we’ve kind of hit a lull, we’re at a crossroads, and actually on the verge of going our separate ways in the first one, and what we discover is, both of us want to save the marriage, and rekindle it by way of sleuthing.
“So, in a sense, it is a new love story. This is a couple coming back together, and their dynamic is so quirky, and they’re so different, and what we buy into is the idea that they love each other so much, and celebrate their differences, as opposed to seeing them as things that stand in the way of their relationship. And what you get when you do that is, you get to love each other and enjoy each other, no matter how quirky or how wacky you are. And so, every scene is full of joy and love.
Campbell praises Garcia for her choices as Birdie. “I have to brag about Aimee for a second. One of the things that makes her such a great actor, one of the choices she made very early on with these characters was, because they are so vastly different, was to celebrate those differences. It allows people to be authentic in the relationship, because they can be authentically themselves. So, it’s this really fun dynamic of two people who know each other intimately, but are also rediscovering [one another] for the first time.”
When interviewed for Assignment X, Garcia complimented Campbell’s dancing skills in a salsa sequence. Campbell seems genuinely surprised to hear this. “Oh, my! I would never have imagined someone would say that about me. No, I’m a horrible dancer, as far as I know. I think she’s being very kind. I have no dance background. In fact, I would say, largely, I’ve been encouraged not to dance in my life.”
While Campbell is a native of Vancouver, Canada, and Canada is famed for film, television and stage – the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, for starters – that incorporates sword-fighting, Campbell says he’s never done that, either.
“I’ve been living in Canada on and off for about forty-four years, I don’t think I’ve seen a single sword. And now I’m disappointed.”
Maybe sword-fighting will show up in the next MYSTERY? “Yeah. Maybe. But if I sword-fight, does that mean I have to learn to dance? Maybe I should learn to dance first, and then introduce the sword-fighting.”
Was there anything Campbell had to learn in order to play Alden?
“No, it was too well-cast,” he laughs. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute. This guy does a bunch of silly accents, and silly voices, and wears disguises, and he’s a total nerd? I got this.’ I don’t have to look much deeper than my own life to figure out how to dive into this guy’s skin.”
Going back to Campbell’s appearance on the morning panel, is Alden really a master of disguise, or does he just think he is?
“This is a lovely thing about all this, is that I think he believes he’s doing what a private investigator would do in any given situation. So, it gives him this freedom to actually be as silly and as wacky as he wants to be, believing he’s doing the right thing. I think he thinks he genuinely is a master of disguise. I have to play it that way.”
Campbell explains that Alden’s day job “constantly shifts. He is technically unemployed. He’s been through thirty-seven different ideas of what he may do for a career. Currently, he buys and sells little model robots and toys online. That’s his little side hustle.”
Would Campbell say THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING is different from other Hallmark fare he’s acted in and/or written?
“Completely. If I were to compare this to anything, this would be closer to BROOKLYN NINE-NINE. It feels like genuine comedy. It’s written as a comedy with a love story at its center, but it was written for the purposes of being funny. And it’s really only in the last couple years at Hallmark that we’ve started to find movies that could fall into the traditional comedy category, not lighthearted dramas. They’re written as comedies.
“Very much in line with that, it’s got a quirkiness that you don’t always find in these movies, it’s got a sense of play that you don’t always find and, with the disguises and the accents and stuff like that, it’s certainly a first for me in my tenure at the network, being able to just get silly and do all the things that I really have been wanting to do as an actor for so long. Comedy is my favorite thing.”
What else does Campbell have coming up? “I’ve got a Christmas movie, THREE WISER MEN AND A BABY, that I cowrote with Kimberley Sustad [Russell Hainline is also credited]. She’s a regular actor for Hallmark as well. We starred in three movies together.” As with the original 2022 THREE WISE MEN AND A BABY, Campbell is one of the lead actors.
And what would Campbell most like people to know about THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE?
“I think they’ll find it a mystery that feels different from all the others. I’m sure everybody says that, but because we are a married couple, there’s a relationship dynamic that you won’t find in the other mysteries. Our singular goal is to make it as fun and as joyful and as heartfelt as possible, and I think we’ve managed to accomplish that in the writing and the performance and the direction, and people will find something a little bit different than they will find anywhere else.”
Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X
Article Source: Assignment X
Article: THE CASES OF MYSTERY LANE: DEATH IS LISTENING: Actor Paul Campbell on Hallmark mystery movie rom com – Exclusive Interview
Related Posts:
Loading ...
