Paris Is Always a Good Idea: Lacey Chabert and Scott Michael Foster on Second Chances, Sliding Doors, and Why Chelsea Is So Hard on Jason
For anyone who hasn’t caught the new Hallmark+ limited series yet: Paris Is Always a Good Idea is based on Jenn McKinlay’s bestselling novel of the same name, and it follows nonprofit executive Chelsea Martin (Lacey Chabert) as she travels to Paris with her sharp-tongued coworker-turned-ally Jason Knightly (Scott Michael Foster) to secure a major donation. But a heartfelt message left behind by her late mother sends Chelsea on a much bigger journey — retracing her steps through Ireland, Paris, and the vineyards of Spain to reconnect with three loves she left behind.
I binged all four available episodes of Paris Is Always a Good Idea about fifteen minutes before I sat down to talk to Lacey Chabert and Scott Michael Foster, and I walked into that conversation with exactly one burning question. So naturally, that’s where I started.
Why Is Chelsea So Mean to Jason?
I said it out loud, unfiltered: “Why is Chelsea so mean to Jason? She wasn’t in the nightclub, and he wasn’t out of line, and she was so mean to him. I want to like her so much.”
Foster didn’t miss a beat. “Well, we have to have an arc. We have to have somewhere to go. And I think they assume things about each other that they come to find out aren’t exactly true,” he explained. “It’s a classic case of you got to get to know someone and not judge a book by its cover.”
Chabert jumped in with a reference that instantly made the whole thing click for me. “There’s a lot of times I think, like, one of my favorite movies is White Christmas. And the whole movie falls apart if she just asks him the truth,” she said, laughing. “But if she does that, the movie ends at like 45 minutes. So we have to build a little bit of tension. I think that’s what’s happening.”
Fair. Completely fair. I’ll allow it.
Six Episodes Instead of One Movie
I confessed something a little embarrassing next: I’ve had McKinlay’s novel sitting on my shelf for years and never cracked it open — until after finishing these first four episodes, because I couldn’t wait to find out what happens next. So I asked what drew them both to this particular adaptation.
For Foster, it came down to scale. “I was so excited to have the chance to, you know, I love doing movies with Hallmark, but to have the chance to explore this story over the course of six episodes, so much more time to be able to delve deeper into the story,” he said. “I love that we get to travel. I mean, it’s in Paris and Ireland and Spain.”
He described the heart of the project as something bigger than romance alone: “It’s a family story at the heart. And it’s really a story of self-exploration and the classic question of what if — what if I had made this decision instead of that? And have I made a mistake? And she doesn’t have to wonder about that for the rest of her life. She gets to go and actually revisit those chapters of her life and those relationships.”
Chabert agreed instantly. “I think you’ve nailed it on the head. It checks a lot of boxes for me. I love working with Hallmark — they’re just such great people. Also, you get to spend time in Europe, which I love,” she said. “But also the writing’s great. When they gave me the scripts, I was like, this is funny and poignant and heartfelt. And the fact that you get to sit and live in that character for six episodes instead of just one movie — it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
When the Show Got Me, Personally
Here’s where I have to be honest with you, because that’s kind of my whole thing: this show wrecked me, and I told them so.
I told Chabert and Foster the episodes that made me jump for joy and those that made me think twice. How in episode two, the one where Chelsea meets Colin, one of her three past loves, along with his wife and kids, had me cringing behind my own hand. And then, without warning, the storyline involving Chelsea’s late mother hit somewhere I wasn’t braced for. My own mom passed away a while back, and watching Chelsea process everything her mother wanted for her sent me right back into my own grief – the good kind of hard, the kind that feels like healing even while it hurts.
I didn’t expect a Hallmark+ limited series to make me confront that. But that’s the thing about Paris Is Always a Good Idea — underneath the gorgeous European backdrops and the will-they-won’t-they tension between Chabert and Foster, there’s a genuinely moving meditation on the paths we didn’t take and the people we lost along the way.
The Verdict
I finished our conversation the way I finish most things lately: a little emotional, extremely invested, and completely sold. Four episodes in, I can’t wait to see how the last two land, and yes — I am finally, six years later, going to read the book.
If you haven’t started Paris Is Always a Good Idea yet, the six-episode series premiered its first two episodes on July 30 on Hallmark+, with new episodes dropping weekly through August 27. Bring tissues. Bring your mom, if you’re lucky enough to still be able to. And maybe, finally, bring that book off your own shelf.
