Jessy Schram is just like Us, swooning over her latest Hallmark leading man, Dominic Sherwood, and who can blame her?
“We did a Zoom table read, and the second Dominic started doing the role, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m blushing,’” Schram, 39, exclusively told Us Weekly of working with Sherwood, 35, on A Suite Holiday Romance, premiering on Saturday, December 13.
The actress gushed, “We didn’t really have to work at chemistry, because he’s just so good. He’s so good at being charming and using all of that. And he’s so great at comedy.”
Schram explained that there is a “pretty large ensemble cast of really fun and talented actors,” one of whom is the Shadowhunters alum.
According to Schram, there is “so much involved” with the rom-com, including shifting between a period piece and present day — but Sherwood made every day a blast.
“Literally, every single day, I think I cried laughing. And we’ve definitely ruined multiple takes,” she confessed to Us. “So the chemistry was there in terms of a beautiful friendship and a really, really fun back and forth between everybody. It was kind of a natural chemistry.”
A Suite Holiday Romance follows ghostwriter Sabrina Post (Schram) as she works on the memoir of famous art dealer Grayson Westcott while staying in a lavish hotel suite.
“What promises to be a perfect week is complicated when Sabrina meets Ian Turner (Sherwood), a handsome British visitor, at the hotel bar,” the logline reads. “When Ian assumes Sabrina is another wealthy guest at the hotel, she doesn’t correct him — a decision she doesn’t regret after learning that Ian is a member of the British aristocracy. Or so she thinks.”
When Sabrina’s wealthy guest persona and Ian’s true identity as the personal secretary of Lord Spencer Braxton come to light, the pair must decide whether the white lies are deal breakers or a fun meet-cute.
“You see kind of the disparity and how they’re on the same page and completely on different pages at the same time, and when the reveal happens, how they both take that,” Schram explained. “But you have two people that are in a scenario of just trying to find where they belong, and they find that in each other. There’s just that one little hiccup of, ‘Wait is he a royal?’”
Schram revealed that her character struggles with her own self-worth while under the impression that her new love interest could be in a completely different social class.
“She’s a very humble journalist that’s just writing in New York, and here’s this guy [who appears to be royalty] and she can’t move across the ocean. That’s a fancy world,” the actress mused. “And then we realize that that’s not what he was brought up in either.”
Schram added that the “series of white lies that nobody intended to make” are at the heart of the story — and make it not just a romance, but a comedy.
“It’s just a lot of miscommunication that’s happening. And it is really sweet,” she said. “There’s a lot of comedy in this one, and I’ve gotten to see a little bit of it and it makes me really happy.”
Schram told Us that unlike her serious character of Dr. Hannah Asher on Chicago Med, her Hallmark heroine gets to experience magic and romance in all its glory. (During the current season of Chicago Med, Hannah is pregnant, working as an OBGYN and navigating a coparenting relationship with her platonic coworker Dr. Dean Archer.)
“I remember going to set and it was one of those things where I was like, ‘Oh my god, I just get to smile all the time,’” she revealed, noting that Med’s Hannah deals with “life or death situations” while Sabrina gets to “just go fall in love and see what that looks like, and have the magical element be there, because it really this.”
A Suite Holiday Romance premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, December 13, at 8 p.m. ET.
