Candace Cameron Bure on Christmas Movies and Debate About Her Channel: “It Was a Really Hard Time”
Candace Cameron Bure, the Full House child star whom fans now know as the Queen of Christmas, isn’t slowing down.
The star is popular for her role on Full House and its Netflix spinoff, Fuller House, not to mention countless Christmas movies for the Hallmark Channel. After leaving the network in 2022 to become the chief content officer of Great American Media, where she works on programming for its Great American Family (GAF) channel, Cameron Bure has continued a steady stream of titles, including two Christmas films this year that she stars in and produces through her CandyRock banner: A Christmas Less Traveled and Home Sweet Christmas.
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In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, the ever-prolific performer discusses what she looks for in a new holiday film, why she scrapped a project pairing her with Cameron Mathison before finding a different one with him, her plans for a rare Christmas-movie sequel, her bond with the Full House cast and her reaction to headlines about a previous interview regarding GAF’s priorities.
When you’re deciding on a new Christmas project, are you looking for something that you haven’t yet gotten to do, or is it more about knowing what works for your audience?
It’s a little bit of both. I read so many Christmas scripts all year long. I’m looking for something that feels fresh to me and will resonate with the audience. Especially for Great American Family channel — where we lean into faith in our movies, and our tagline for the channel is, “Christmas as it’s meant to be” — I’m looking for things that really touch the heart and have more purpose to them than just the magic of Christmas or the Santa Claus of Christmas. As I read scripts, I usually can tell within the first 15 to 20 pages if it’s something that’s going to grab me or if it’s a story I’ve heard a hundred times over.
Earlier this year, you announced that you would be co-starring with Cameron Mathison in a new Christmas movie, and then you noted that you two would be going with a different script. Are there a number of Christmas screenplays that are typically ready to go at a moment’s notice?
Usually, we hope that that’s never the case, but this year, it was the case. We did have a script, Jingle Bells, Wedding Bells, that we thought would be good for the two of us. As we went into some of the production elements, I realized very quickly that it probably wasn’t going to be the best movie that we could do. I pulled the plug on it pretty quickly. When we reread Home Sweet Christmas, I was like, “Actually, this is a much better movie for the two of us together,” because we play these childhood friends that get reunited. That feels very much like Cameron and me, as we’ve been friends for a really long time but never worked together.
Fans were excited about the prospect of you two working together. Are there frequently actors like that with whom you want to collaborate?
Cameron is one of those people because we are staple actors in the genre. It was crazy, thinking about the fact that we hadn’t done a movie together. I don’t even know if I’ve ever repeated a co-star because I like to work with new people, and I like to bring fresh faces to our channel as well. But Cameron and I actually paired so well together, so we are actually considering doing a sequel to this movie. The fans really enjoyed it.
I know that your 2022 interview about Great American Family spurred headlines about the channel emphasizing traditional marriage, and then later, your former Full House co-star Jodie Sweetin was unhappy to have her film get acquired by the network. Has it felt tough to convey what this network values if viewers aren’t familiar with its programming?
It certainly is difficult when talking to media outlets. While we are grateful for media outlets that point people to our channels, there’s still always a risk because the answers can be written out of context. That certainly happened to me when moving over to Great American Family, and it was a really hard time, and to be misunderstood in that way was difficult. But what I will say is that we are a relatively new channel. This is only our fourth year in Christmas. Like any new business, you have your core demographic and what you’re looking for, and you’re going to produce the product that will best suit that audience. Most networks are not trying to be all things to all people. What really differentiates our channel from some of the other ones out there is that we’re not afraid to talk about God and God’s hand in our lives instead of fate or providence.
This has been a divided time for our country. Is that on your mind when you’re working on films and potentially trying to unite viewers?
Yeah, it’s always been the spirit of all the movies that I’ve produced. God loves all of us, and so that’s the spirit in which I make everything.
Bob Saget’s death was such a tough loss. Has there been any recent discussion of bringing back a new version of Full House?
We haven’t had any discussions of that. Fuller House was a great success for Netflix, but I don’t think there’s going to be another iteration. If they ever wanted to make it, I think we would all be on board for it. We’re all still very close.
You continue to be wildly prolific. What are your plans for next year?
I’ll probably shoot another four to five movies in 2025. It’s what I love doing.
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