SUCOPRESS/Raquel Laguna. Chyler Leigh, Evan Williams and Sadie Laflamme-Snow talk in this interview about working on the HALLMARK CHANNEL’S THE WAY HOME Season 2 and about their characters. In the first season, the multigenerational family drama introduced viewers to Kat Landry (Leigh), her teen daughter Alice (Laflamme-Snow) and Kat’s mother Del (MacDowell), three generations of women who are strong, willful and independent. After being estranged for nearly two decades following the unsolved disappearance of Kat’s eight-year-old brother Jacob (Remy Smith) and untimely death of family patriarch Colton Landry (Jefferson Brown) that prompted Kat to move away from her Canadian farm town of Port Haven, Kat moves back with Alice when she finds herself at a crossroads in life. Shortly after arriving, Alice unwittingly discovers the ability to travel between the past and present via a pond on the family’s land. Soon, Kat and Alice become determined to unearth the truth about these past tragedies and attempt to change the course of events. Elliot (Williams), Kat’s childhood friend who always held a torch for her, is there in the present to help guide both in their journey, as well as in the past for Alice as his teen self (David Webster). Season two starts where the shocking season one finale left off and had viewers on the edge of their seats – with Kat exclaiming to Del that she knows what happened to Jacob. As Kat continues her quest to find Jacob and bring him home, she and Alice uncover unexpected revelations about their origins that bring answers to some questions while new ones are raised.
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00:00 Skyler, tell me, how will the dynamic
00:04 between Kat and Alice will be in this new season?
00:08 Well, there's a lot of learning that they both, um,
00:13 had to endure, um, a lot of heartache,
00:16 you know, the ups and the downs.
00:18 From season one, when we first meet them,
00:20 um, it's a very rocky time in both of their lives.
00:23 So, through the challenge of the pond
00:26 and all the journeying that they do together,
00:29 um, I think it healed a lot of parts in them
00:32 that needed to be healed.
00:33 Um, but as we journey into season two,
00:37 now that she's really exploring even more
00:40 and my character Kat is gone,
00:43 she's starting to come upon, uh, certain instances
00:48 that were-- Elliot in particular and Kat
00:51 are a bit nervous for her to see.
00:53 So, Kat gets very protective
00:55 and wants to keep Alice from-- from going back
00:59 or Alice from experiencing maybe something
01:02 that, uh, has been swept under the rug, uh, a few times.
01:06 Say, your character Alice is strong, is independent.
01:10 What do you like the most about playing her?
01:13 And do you relate to her in any way?
01:15 Absolutely. I think Alice is probably the character that,
01:19 you know, that I've played that I relate to the most.
01:21 I think that in a lot of ways, you know,
01:25 but like, aside from the-- just...
01:28 how much she loves her mom, loves her grandmother,
01:31 she loves music, these things that we have in common,
01:33 um, I just feel like there's a very--
01:37 there's a very thin veil between Alice and I in a lot of ways.
01:40 Um, but one of my favorite things is just,
01:43 like you said, how-- how strong and independent
01:45 and courageous she is to, um, push her family
01:49 to do the healing that they need to do.
01:50 I think that, um, she's seen how much these, like, secrets
01:56 and silence between her mom and her grandmother,
01:58 how much damage that's done.
02:00 And it takes a lot of courage to-- to push people in your life
02:03 to have hard conversations, and I love that about her.
02:05 She's able to do that for her family.
02:07 Ivan, what attracted you to this project in the first place?
02:11 When I first laid eyes on the script for The Way Home,
02:15 I was speechless at the end of episode one.
02:21 Not only because, uh, I loved the writing
02:24 and I loved the, uh, the subject matter,
02:27 it felt so evocative, but also because of what
02:31 a brave expansion it is for Hallmark
02:35 compared to what they usually make.
02:37 And we know that the-- the basic tenets of Hallmark,
02:41 which are about hope and family,
02:43 these things are present in our show,
02:44 and audiences are not going to feel betrayed,
02:47 and they don't.
02:48 But we are expanding on that and telling stories
02:52 in a way that are gripping and keeping people
02:55 on the edge of their seats,
02:56 and not only making it appointment viewing,
02:58 people are showing up, chomping at the bit to see every week,
03:01 but also they're watching the episodes three, four times
03:05 with a fine-tooth comb, trying to glean
03:08 every little piece of information
03:10 so they can predict theories about what's going to happen.
03:12 And I think this is something wholly new for Hallmark
03:15 and is-- is really gratifying for us as the storytellers
03:18 because, uh, we know when the audiences are watching this,
03:22 and they're watching that closely,
03:23 we have them right on the--
03:25 like, we have them right on the head of a pen.
03:28 They're watching so closely, and from that point of view,
03:30 we can tell really impactful storytelling.
03:32 And so when I first signed on,
03:34 I was coming in with a sort of highest-level
03:38 dream expectation of what this could be,
03:40 and it has been surpassed and then some.
03:43 And it makes me really excited for what's ahead with the story
03:45 because it just gets bigger and deeper from here.
03:48 For the three of you, if you could travel in time,
03:52 which would you prefer, going to the past
03:54 or travel to the future?
03:56 Oh, good question.
03:59 I like-- I like going to the past.
04:02 I-- I have to say that going-- doing this show
04:05 has definitely fulfilled some sort of fantasy
04:08 to-- to time travel to the past.
04:10 And, you know, that question of,
04:12 "I wonder what my mom was like when she was my age,"
04:14 I feel like through this show, I've been able to live that,
04:16 and-- and I love that about this-- this piece, so.
04:19 Yeah. How about you?
04:22 I-- I would rather go to the past.
04:25 Um, I think that the future is so, um, hard to predict,
04:31 and I don't think I want to see what's coming.
04:34 I'd rather-- preferably, I'd rather live in the present.
04:37 But if I had to choose, I'd probably go back
04:40 and be like a fly on the wall in-- in as many, like,
04:43 big conversations, you know, that have happened in history
04:46 just to kind of see, "Oh, this is where it started,"
04:49 and kind of then, you know, maybe see if I can
04:52 make things happen.
04:53 What happened will always happen, though.
04:55 -Oh, gosh, you're right. -Fine.
04:58 Elliot says so many times in the show, in season one,
05:02 that the pond will send you where you need to go.
05:04 And so I think that if I had the opportunity to time travel,
05:07 I think the best case scenario would--
05:09 that I would have some sort of semi-sentient
05:12 time travel mechanism that would send me
05:15 exactly where I needed to go, even if I didn't know
05:17 why I was being sent there, because I was there
05:19 for some reason. So for that reason,
05:21 I think that the time travel mechanism we have
05:23 on this show is brilliant and has lots of narrative,
05:26 lateral possibilities, and I would like to be
05:29 part of that in real life.
05:30 You are such a suck-up.
05:31 (LAUGHING)
05:34 That face.
05:35 (laughing)