Marcus Rosner & Vanessa Lengies on Snowbound for the Holidays
Snowbound for the Holidays, starring Marcus Rosner and Vanessa Lengies, premieres Saturday, July 18 on Hallmark Channel as part of the network’s Christmas in July lineup, and will start streaming Sunday on Hallmark+. We caught up with Marcus and Vanessa for a quick chat ahead of the premiere.
Listen to Girls Gone Hallmark’s chat with Vanessa Lenghies and Marcus Rosner about “Snowbound for the Holidays”
The Walkman was real, and it didn’t survive filming
Marcus’s character Trey carries a Walkman through the entire movie, and it turns out the prop actually worked. “They pulled it out of a box at the top of the shoot,” Marcus said. “There was a really janky old plastic clip on the back that attached it to my belt, and eventually it just snapped off and we had to tape it on.”
Trey is analog. Marcus is… kind of
Trey doesn’t believe in digitizing everything, and Marcus admits he’s a bit of a split himself. “I like to write things down and cross them off. If there’s a list app, that doesn’t really work for me. I’m a millennial, I’m kind of bridging the gap.” Vanessa, on the other hand, owns a VHS player and a stack of VHS tapes, plus a new VHS/DVD combo unit. “Now I have to look into getting DVDs,” she said.
Learning to ski in one lesson
Vanessa’s character Cassidy learns to ski in a single lesson, and it looks effortless on screen. In real life, Vanessa is a longtime snowboarder but had never skied before this shoot. “They put me on skis and I just did it,” she said. Marcus jumped in to fill in the details neither of them fully remembered: they each had stunt doubles for the bigger ski work, but Vanessa skied the smaller shots herself, including a small on-camera crash.
Real snow, real fun: shooting the tubing scene
One perk of filming in an actual winter instead of the middle of July, when Hallmark shoots most of its holiday movies, is real snow. “We were so lucky,” Vanessa said. “That would’ve been a nightmare if it was produced snow.” She and Marcus went up and down the hill over and over with a small crew and no rush, and both said it tapped into genuine childhood nostalgia. It shows on screen.
The scene that got cut, and the hormones that came with it
Vanessa was pregnant during filming, and one scene never made it in front of the camera due to time constraints: Cassidy watching Trey’s family decorate a Christmas tree with snowshoes and realizing she doesn’t belong in that life, then walking away upset. “I remember being so upset that it was being cut,” Vanessa said. “I think my hormones were not helping my rage.” Marcus’s take: “Vanessa’s very big on the script. If it’s in the script, she expects to shoot it. She’s a pro.”
Did You See That? The Easter egg
On our recurring segment where we ask cast to point out something viewers might miss, Marcus offered this one up: somewhere during filming, a pregnant Vanessa slipped down a set of stairs in a scene that ultimately didn’t make the final cut. Nobody was hurt, but it was a whole thing on set. See if you can guess which scene it might have been.
Watch it
Snowbound for the Holidays airs Saturday, July 18 on Hallmark Channel, and streams Sunday on Hallmark+.
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