There will never come a day where interviews don’t make me nervous. I know, actors are just people with extraordinary jobs, but that doesn’t make doing them less nerve wracking. To be honest though, I wouldn’t want them to be less nerve wracking, because that means that I have become jaded and I don’t want that to happen. I know that I am privileged to be able to talk to actors I admire.
Janel Parrish and Chris McNally being two of them.
As I was let into the zoom chat, I had just turned off my screener for Two for Tee. I loved it so much and the way that it felt different than any other Hallmark movie I had watched. I loved that it was a sweet romance that had not only been that, but had also turned into a beautiful story about community and what a difference it can make.
But it also was about heritage and how important it is.
In the movie, Parrish plays Tee. She’s a pottery teacher and a vintage shop owner. She’s learning about her heritage, her art, and feelings. McNally plays Will, a single Dad who is finding his way in his new town, balancing his daughter, work, and learning to allow someone else in.
Both Parrish and McNally excel at whatever they put their minds to. It didn’t take long into this interview for me to realize that one thing off screen that Parrish really excels at is being a hype woman and supportive of her friends. I told them both how the movie made me smile from the get go.
Parrish said, “That’s the goal. We want to make you guys smile while you’re watching this movie. um But we just had so much fun making this movie. Chris and I met and immediately got along great, which makes the whole shoot so much easier. You can just show up and connect and play. um But it’s just got so much heart to this movie. It’s got so much heart.”
She then continued, “As somebody who is half Chinese, half white, I was like, I saw myself reflected on the page and that made me so happy because growing up, I didn’t really see a lot of that. I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me represented on TV and in films. So that just made me so excited. I was so happy that Hallmark was sort of giving this platform to tell these stories and to make it authentic”
I always love finding out why someone becomes involved in a project because it makes me understand them a little more. Yes, you will get media coached answers, but a lot of the time you get honesty.
And I love the insight.
“And it’s just a really… heartwarming, fun, sweet story. Yeah. My turn. OK. Yeah. Well, I wanted to get involved because of the people that were involved in it. One of the producers, John, I’ve known him for a long time and we almost worked with Janel a few times and kept missing each other. So it was an opportunity to do that. The director, Michael, he and I have worked together before as well.” McNally added, “I love the culture that we explore in it and how we get to dive into Yixing pottery and the beauty of it. uh And then also these two and just the way that they, Will and T and their journey I thought was very lovely and very cute. And I also love that Will has his daughter, Natalie, and that she’s kind of a part of this world as well. And you get to see him in a co-parenting situation, which I don’t think we see as much in the Hallmark world.”
In the movie, Will is the ultimate girl Dad. His life revolves around his daughter and that means making the community a better place for her to be in. Nothing is more important to him than his daughter.
Being a girl dad is important to McNally, “That resonates with me for sure, because that’s me in real life too. Yeah, a double dad now. Yeah, I feel sorry for you and I don’t know how old they are, but like I feel sorry for you when the teenage years come. Yeah, we’ll see how that goes. mean, almost four and maybe 11 days. The other one is pretty fresh. 11 days. Congratulations. So if I’m not fully answering your questions properly.”
Janel and I both were impressed with McNally even sitting upright. We all joked, McNally joking that he has a “stick at the back” sitting him upright, and that it was his “attempt to joke.”
And I’ve never seen a better hype woman than Parrish. She pumped him up and made me smile at how supportive she is of him. She maintained a smile and kept telling him how great he was doing.
I think that it is important to see the good and bad side of characters. No one is perfect, after all. I asked, “What is your character’s biggest red flag and what is your character’s biggest green flag?”
Parrish replied, “Oh, wow. I think T’s biggest red flag, if you could even really call it that, is that she doesn’t always believe in herself. But her biggest green flag is that she is willing to try and she never stops trying to work on herself and grow, I would say. I like that.
McNally answered, “Now, I think Will’s green flag would be that he is really great at he sort of inherently tries to lift people up and uh and support them or also kind of if he can see something that somebody else can’t. I think he’s really willing to try and help them find it in a genuine, generous way. So he’s a really supportive person. Red flag. Maybe that he talks about his business idea he has and stuff, but it only kind of came to fruition due to circumstances outside of his control with the mother of Natalie. And maybe he could be a little bit more ambitious in terms of. Not necessarily ambitious, but he just sort of let things wait, you know, until he goes, well, I guess now I have to do that thing that I really want to do.”
The movie not only centers around romance, it has a lot to do with community centers. I know that they used to be a bigger deal So why did you think places like that are important for communities?
McNally said, “Well, I think we see it here. I think this movie is a good example of it, where you have a group of people who are really passionate about pottery class. I think Beth’s passionate about her books, maybe a little more. But the point is that we get to see them thrive in their environment, and we see how big of an effect that environment and that class and the community center has on them and on their lives.”
Parrish added, “it cultivates relationships with people that they come to love. Like see the usual suspects in this pottery class and you come to love all of them. They’re all kind of quirky and they have their, they’re like, they have their relationship that is so important that they cultivated through going to this place and learning a new hobby and a new skill together, like that bond. uh And so it’s like the place is so important to them because that’s where they learned their passions and they made these amazing relationships.”
She spoke about community and that “everybody can root for that sense of community” in the film.
In the film, I cried my eyes out when Tee’s Mom reconnected with her cousin that she had left behind in China. I had asked, “How important was it to have that situation and that history in this movie?
Parrish added, “I love that family is everything it really really is and like really tugged at my heartstrings as well. I think Lillian, she was so beautiful in that scene. It was just such a special scene, to highlight how important family is and connection is. I really also very much loved that storyline in the script. I thought that that really was gonna tug on people’s heartstrings. I’m glad that that resonated with you so much too.”
Tee for Two is a very special movie, filled with heart and a lot of soul. The storyline, the casting, the acting all made this movie what it is.
These two being the most important part off the film overall.
