When you think of Hallmark, chances are words like Christmas, saccharine romance, and melodrama come to mind. The cable network has unapologetically carved a niche over decades, but its recent TV drama is different, at least according to its leading star. In a recent interview with The A.V. Club, Chyler Leigh refers to The Way Home as “elevated content” for Hallmark, and that she’s glad it’s found a place in viewers’ lives and social media chatter.
After being a part of two long-running projects with passionate fandoms, Leigh says she has developed a “wonderful, diverse” audience that has followed her career. She’ll forever be known to this writer as Grey’s Anatomy’s Lexie Grey (RIP), but her groundbreaking role as Alex Danvers in Supergirl, and especially the character’s coming-out journey, resonated with fans. Now, she’s thrilled those fans are showing up for something they wouldn’t otherwise gravitate toward.
“A lot of audience members from the LGBTQ community who wouldn’t have normally watched a Hallmark show in the past come and see The Way Home and say to me, ‘I see myself even if it isn’t my story exactly.’ To show this elevated level of content on Hallmark, I’m excited for the audiences,” she says, adding “We’re opening a lot of doors.”
In the fantasy drama, she plays single mom Kat Landry, who returns home with her teen daughter after being away for 20 years. She stopped talking to her mother, Del (Andie Macdowell), after a tragedy years prior. Now, three generations of Landry women attempt to solve the mystery of Kat’s brother’s disappearance upon discovering that—wait for it—the pond next to their farm is a time portal. All you have to do is dive right in.
Leigh tells The A.V. Club she was blown away by The Way Home’s “powerful scripts” and didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to tell a story tackling “mental health issues, relational issues within a family, and chosen family,” a.k.a. themes you might not associate with Hallmark. She adds: “What a wonderful reward and gift for us to know it’s making a difference. People are seeing themselves in [the Landry women].” And don’t worry, she confirms MacDowell is as awesome as everyone imagines her to be. “She’s one of the coolest women I’ve met in my whole life. We get in trouble quite a bit because we’re messing around too much.”
Speaking of mess, literally in this case, the actor also revealed one of her Grey’s Anatomy moments, and it’s a bloody good pick. “I absolutely have a favorite moment. It was in season four, so it’s baby Lexie. Seth Green is in it [Ed note: It’s episode nine, “Crash Into Me”]. His character had a crazy carotid artery issue, and I was assigned to take care of him, begrudgingly at first because she didn’t know what she was doing. Talk about a first-time experience,” she laughs. Leigh says it was a bloodfest to film the scene. “His artery blows, and it’s a horror show. He’s in bed, I’m standing there looking like Carrie, and we’re just looking like each other. They yelled cut and we were like, ‘What’s happening? What is this?’ It was beyond anything I had done. It’s still humbling to see how much love there is for her.”
Similarly, she’s in awe of Supergirl’s impact on queer fans: “Alex was relatable to thousands of people. I’ve met people at Comic-Cons, conventions, and other events where, and this is where it gets humbling and makes me feel gratitude beyond measure, they’ve said ‘I had to meet you because I needed to see you in person and to know that I matter, my voice matters, my story matters. I’m using your coming out scene to show my family when I don’t have the words.”
Leigh got visibly emotional, adding: “You’ll hear people say sometimes that we’re just making a TV show, we’re not saving the world, but you know what, we are saving a lot of people’s worlds. I know that impact firsthand. Being in this industry has pros and cons, but the opportunity to use a platform that affects people gives me a reason to work hard, to work on a set where people are working cohesively because that environment breeds greater performances.”
On that note, you’ll get to see her as Kat Landry again even after The Way Home’s jaw-dropping season two finale, which aired on March 31, because Hallmark has already renewed it for season three.