THE WAY HOME -Season 2 Key Art | ©2024 Hallmark
In Hallmark Channel’s series THE WAY HOME, now in its second season on Sunday nights, Evan Williams plays Elliot Augustine, who has grown up in a charming small town in Canada. When Elliot was a teenager (played by David Webster), he was secretly in love with best friend Kat (played as a teen by Alex Hook, and as an adult by Chyler Leigh).
But in the show, created by Marly Reed & Alexandra Clarke & Heather Conkie, Elliot’s world got turned upside-down when Kat’s adolescent daughter Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) arrives from the present in 1999. This is because there’s a pond on Kat’s family farm that allows time travel. Alice is here seeking Kat’s little brother Jacob (Remy Smith), who disappeared into the pond in 1999.
To teen Kat, Alice is just a good friend, but the visitor from our present/their future confides the truth to Elliot, including the fact that Kat grows up to marry someone else and that Elliot remains in town.
In the present, now that Kat (who didn’t know about the pond when younger) learns that Elliot has known about its magic all this time, she is angry at him, while Alice is upset that Elliot left town to find himself, even though he’s back now.
Williams, a native of Calgary, Canada, had a background in stage before embarking on a career in film and television. His previous credits include GREY GARDENS, DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION, BAXTER, LLOYD THE CONQUEROR, AWKWARD, ESCAPE ROOM, VERSAILLES, and BLONDE.
At a luncheon hosted by Hallmark Channel for the Winter 2024 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, Williams talks about playing a man whose life has been hugely impacted by time travel, even though he has not (so far) moved backward through the years himself.
Williams says that, while he didn’t know for certain how far THE WAY HOME would reach into the fantasy/science-fiction genre, “I had secret hopes that the show that we were going to make was something that would be pushing the boundaries of anything that Hallmark had done before. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be showing up as a spy in the House of Hallmark, and being one of the only ones that had this idea. But I was pleased to find out that, when I got there, everybody shared that same manifesto.
“We all wanted to do something that was expanding what was possible for Hallmark, and challenged its audiences, but with that challenge, opened up the possibility for greater reward. And I think that’s what’s come to pass, and I think it’s only going to continue to get more that way, and I think audiences have proven that they’re ready for it – not only are they ready, they’re hungry for it, and that’s why every single week, they’re champing at the bit.”
Williams likes that THE WAY HOME mixes humor in with its more serious elements. “It’s fun to have a little comedy in a show that also deals with some deeper themes, and we like to have it be rewarding in that way, that you know that it’s going to cover all the different bases and it’s not going to be just a one-note thing. I think that’s why audiences have become so obsessive about it. I think it’s a new thing for Hallmark to have audiences that are so pinpointed and detail-oriented, because they know that any little thing could have a big effect on the future of the storytelling. And so, we have theories flying all over social media. We have people desperate to see the next show every week, and that’s really exciting for us as the actors, and the creators, and for Hallmark I’m sure as well, and we’re excited for what’s next, because the show just gets better and better and better.”
As a teen, Elliot resented Alice telling him his future. Now that Elliot is older – not to mention at a time beyond what Alice could accurately predict – is he still perturbed?
Evan Williams in THE WAY HOME – Season 2 | ©2024 Hallmark
Williams’s opinion is, “Elliot’s had a long time to think, and in a way, I think he’s been able to, if not make peace with the past, he’s been able to compartmentalize it. So, I think that it is really challenging when the past comes looping around again in his present, because in a way, he figured out how he was going to relate to it. He knew what was happening in the past, but he still doesn’t know how the present is going to unfold. And so, when he finds out that, at the end of Season 1 in Episode 10, that Kat was responsible for [her father/Elliot’s father figure] Colton’s [Jefferson Brown] death, I think that is really destabilizing for Elliot, and challenges the way that he had made peace with the whole thing.”
Elliot is going through something new, because he finally doesn’t know what’s coming next. “I think Elliot is used to being the one in the know. And so, being in uncharted territory is inevitably going to change him. And I think he’s spent a lot of time wishing that he could have agency over his life, but now that he’s unmoored, and potentially unpopular as well, we see him struggling a little bit more and it’s going to be a hill to climb to see if he can earn his way into becoming that man that he’s always wished to be.”
As for Elliot’s current relationship with Kat, Williams observes, “In Season 1, he is privy to the breakdown between Kat and her ex-husband Brady [Al Mukadam]. It becomes contentious for a while, but I think it’s very clear that Kat chooses Elliot. It just happens to be unfortunate that at that very moment, at that nexus, is right when Elliot realizes that he needs to figure out who he is. And so, that’s not a very popular choice with Kat, or with audiences, frankly, or with Alice, so that’s where we start off Season 2. It’s Elliot trying to figure out how to get out of the doghouse, and also be true to himself.”
How are audiences communicating their displeasure with Elliot’s actions? “Well, one of the things about having a show that people are so rabid about and following so closely is, they aren’t shy with sharing their opinions. And so, with social media and the various reviews, we always know how audiences are feeling.
“That’s interesting for us, because we’ve already shot everything, we already made the choices. So, we’re not really trying to pander to audiences. We’re trying to tell the story that we want to tell, and we know that if we are modest and we are trying to tell the story from the deepest place in ourselves and earn it, then we know audiences will be on board for it.”
Have Williams and Leigh conferred with the actors playing their characters’ younger selves in order to seem like they’re the same people in both timelines? “One of the really cool things about shooting a show that has a narrative device that allows you to tell the story from the present and the past at the same time is that we can be breadcrumbing things for our younger self or older selves in our performances. And so, we’re paying very close attention to what they’re doing, and at the same time, they’re paying attention to what we’re doing, and the writers are paying attention to it all. So, as the show is continuing, it is just getting twistier and twistier. And we get to see how it all weaves together in a fascinating way.”
Has Williams had to learned how to do anything in order to play Elliot? “First and foremost, the biggest challenge for me was learning how to act with glasses on. Because I don’t wear glasses. Usually, as actors, we are aware if the camera can see our eyes. We know, ‘If I can’t see the camera, the camera can’t see me.’ And so, it was hard to not be distracted by that – it was like I was standing behind a tree every time.
“It took seeing some of the footage for me to realize that, actually, it wasn’t a curse, it was a blessing, because it made audiences relate to Elliot in a different way, because they didn’t know what he was thinking all the time. And so, little things like that are just happy accidents that just make the story go deeper, and the glasses really helped inform the whole character for me.
The glasses have a tendency to fog up, “Especially when we were working in the cold. We had to spray to keep the fog from happening, and it was tough.” However, glasses fog isn’t Williams’s biggest on-set problem. My number one enemy is these eyebrows, because they have to put stuff on them to keep them from [sticking to the glasses]. But because of the stuff they put on them, it smudges the glasses. So, I’ve got a thing in my pocket – I’m always cleaning those glasses. It’s my second job on the show.”
What else is Williams doing these days? “I’m also a music artist. I have a music project called BRIGHT WORLD, which is on Spotify and Apple Music and all the things. In fact, I just passed one million streams on my music, which is cool.
“For [THE WAY HOME] audiences who are paying really close attention, they would realize that in Episode 10 last season, I was lucky enough to have the producers put in the show a cover that I did of ‘Time After Time.’ So, it’s a nice dovetail. But I’m going to be recording some new music very shortly, and I’m also developing a feature film on my own, and just trying to be creative in any way that I can. But since we are under contract with this show, we’re just really excited to continue with the next season, God willing.”
What would Williams most like people to know about THE WAY HOME? “That whatever your expectations are about it, they will be flipped entirely upside-down, and that the audiences that are into it are so, so passionate for a reason, and that the swell of attention and excitement is only growing, and if they want to get in, they might as well get in on the ground floor.”
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Article: Exclusive Interview: Actor Evan Williams on Season 2 of THE WAY HOME
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