For three seasons (going on four), Kevin McGarry and Kayla Wallace have shared the small screen on Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart. This weekend, the real-life couple will appear together in the romantic comedy, Feeling Butterflies.
“Flutterly excited for this one,” Wallace wrote in an Instagram post that included a clip from the movie.
In the film, Wallace plays Emily, a lepidopterist (the scientific name for a butterfly expert) trying to build a business that releases butterflies at birthday parties and weddings.
“Which is an actual, popular thing,” Wallace said during an appearance on the Everything About Hallmark podcast. “I had no idea.”
She is hired to do a release at a birthday party for a little girl named Amanda (played by Alyssa Gervasi). Emily connects with both the birthday girl and her handsome, widowed father, Garrett (played by McGarry).
Through Garrett’s connections, she gets the opportunity to do a release at a socialite’s wedding, an event that could bring her business the publicity it desperately needs. Garrett and Amanda agree to help her get ready, and as Garrett and Emily spend more time together, she develops feelings for him. Things become complicated when Garrett’s ex-girlfriend shows up, and Garrett contemplates moving to New York City.
Help from the experts
Both Wallace and her co-star Kathryn Kohut, who also played a lepidopterist, said they learned a lot while making the movie.
“It was really interesting to learn about all the different kinds of butterflies, and how they breed them, and about all these actual release parties that they do,” Kohut said in an appearance on the Everything About Hallmark podcast.
Real butterflies were used in the movie, and there was even a butterfly wrangler on set, the actresses said.
Costume and settings
The two stars also got to incorporate butterflies in their wardrobe, wearing butterfly dresses and earrings.
“There were butterflies everywhere,” Wallace said. “It was really cool to step outside of what you would wear in a normal movie.”
Kohut even got to have fun with makeup.
“Usually, in a lot of these Hallmark movies, it’s usually very neutral, very simple makeup,” she said. “But for Mandy’s character, I got to do bright colors.”
The movie was filmed over the summer in the town of Almonte, which is near Ottawa.
“I think it will be a really beautiful movie,” Wallace said.
Feeling Butterflies will air Saturday, March 12, at 8/7c on The Hallmark Channel.
Is the girl who played Amanda related to person who played Winnie Cooper on the Wonder Years?