Exclusive Interview
Hallmark’s Kevin McGarry Reveals Most ‘Drastic Change Between ‘When Calls the Heart’ & ‘Villa Amore’
Kevin McGarry is hard at work on When Calls the Heart Season 13, but in between seasons, he took a break from the early 20th century to explore the great city of Rome in Hallmark’s new movie, Villa Amore. Naturally, McGarry is playing the romantic lead, this time opposite Eloise Mumford, whose character spontaneously buys the Italian villa where her parents met.
When Liara finds herself in over her head with the repairs, she turns to Leo, a handsome lawyer-turned-handyman. Ahead of the film’s June 21 premiere, McGarry opened up to Swooon about his newest Hallmark role.
McGarry relished filming in and around Rome. “My weekends were filled with wandering the streets of the city in search of the next carbonara and Barolo!” he said. “To be honest, my absolute favorite was the people I worked with. The crew was 100% Italian, and it was an absolute joy to go to work with them every day.”
Hallmark Media / Moris Puccio
He gushed over working with the “immensely talented” Mumford and teased that Leo and Liara have that “ethereal Hallmark spark” right away. “But what brings them together is a connection they share to make more of their lives than what was given to them back home, to find happiness in an unlikely place,” he revealed. “A dilapidated, decaying, deteriorating, unlikely place.”
The actor admitted that Villa Amore was a far cry from the world of When Calls the Heart. “Indoor plumbing might be the best thing about modern-day Italy to 20th-century prairie life,” McGarry quipped. “Although, truth be told, indoor plumbing doesn’t come into play at the Villa Amore until halfway through the movie. Another drastic change was trading in my heroic steed, Newton, for the lovable Italian donkey, Bacci!”
Love and romance are intricately connected to the city of Rome. After all, Roma (Rome in Italian) is an anagram for amor, the Latin word for love.
“On our first week in Italy, we all met for dinner at a restaurant across from the Colosseum. One of our Italian producers told me when she was a teenager in Rome the security around the major landmarks wasn’t as strict as it is now. They used to sneak into the old Roman Forum with their girlfriends or boyfriends and kiss under the stars of the Colosseum. I thought that was one of the most romantic things I’ve heard,” McGarry recalled.
Villa Amore, Movie Premiere, June 21, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel
