Lacey Chabert Talks About Trying Something Totally Different In Her New Hallmark Series, ‘Celebrations’

"It's unscripted. It's real."

Hallmark Media has just given their streaming service a serious glow up and relaunched as Hallmark + this week and they didn’t come empty handed. In fact, they came with a smorgasbord of brand new offerings. From the highly anticipated new series, The Chicken Sisters, to a new movie trilogy Love on the Danube both premiering exclusively on the streamer, to a whole new realm of programming. Hallmark + is also dipping their toes in the world of unscripted lifestyle shows.

This was something that greatly excited one of the feel-good network’s biggest stars, Lacey Chabert. “I had a lovely conversation with Lisa Hamilton Daly and she told me that Hallmark would possibly be venturing into the unscripted space and asked if I had any ideas,” the Mississippi native told Southern Living.

“I had an idea about celebrating kids and deserving people and together we developed this and it turned into what you’re seeing now. It was a real labor of love.”

That idea turned into Celebrations, a show all celebrating everyday heroes. Chabert said she was very excited to do something totally different but also knew this would be challenging. “I’m used to being the one being interviewed and to have the tables turned and to be interviewing other people and hearing about stories and throwing surprise parties. It was a mixture of so many of my passions and I was so thankful to have that opportunity.”

Each episode, Chabert and her professional party planner pals, Lisa Friedman and Marisa Lainer, select someone who selflessly serves their community in some way to celebrate. They conspire with the hero’s friends and family and plan the ultimate surprise party with a different, unique theme, catered to each recipient’s personal style and interests.

Viewers are along for every step of the process from the secret meetings with the people who nominated the hero and many of the people they have helped, to the planning meeting with Lisa and Marissa to come up with the theme, to gathering all of the elements from the food and beverages to the decor. And finally, the big reveal. We see the party come together, no matter what obstacles the team encounters, and the moment of surprise when the hero arrives at the party.

Fair warning, this series is charming, lovely, and inspiring. It will also make your mascara run. Each episode is packed with warm, emotional moments. “My heart was so touched by so many things… the look on our heroes faces when they walked in. They think they’re there about an interview for a documentary and then they realize it’s a surprise party and it’s for them and they see that they are surrounded by their loved ones and family and friends. Such a special moment.”

Chabert continued, “I was also so touched every time by talking to the people that had been impacted by our heroes and hearing about how their acts of service had changed their lives for the better. It was amazing.”

The veteran actress noted the differences in a show like this compared to what she’s used to do doing. “Again it’s unscripted. It’s real,” she said. “We’re dealing with people who have regular jobs and are in school. We have to be very flexible with our time. It’s not like filming a movie where everything is planned a lot in the future. With this, we would lose a venue because it started raining. Or something happened so we had to be really flexible and also try to keep this surprise from our hero.”

“Lisa and Marissa, they are professional planners so they always have these great back up plans if something were to happen and then we are filming a television show, we have a crew of people and everyone pitches in and you just make it happen. Especially when you’re doing it for such a good cause.”

Chabert said that much like how she felt the script was flipped on her role in this show as suddenly being the one asking the questions, the people they honored each week are more used to being the ones celebrating or helping others, and oftentimes quietly in the background. “I found a lot of them to not really want the attention. So it was really nice to say, you know for this moment, it really is all about you and we want to give you some of the love back that you’ve put out to the world.”

While each episode of this season was filmed in the greater Los Angeles area, Chabert hopes if they get the chance to do a second season, she and her team will be able to take their show on the road and celebrate heroes all across the country. “We have so many ideas of different places we could go and different types of parties we could throw and I hope we have the chance to tell other people’s stories.”

Each episode, Chabert found herself inspired. “I think the lesson I walked away with every time was sometimes the world feels a little overwhelming and big and how are you really going to make an impact? Where do you start? And every time, with every hero, I realized you just start with one person. You just start with wanting to make a change and changing the life of one person. It has the ripple effect.”

The show also gives exposure to so many small nonprofits and introduces the viewers to so many ways to help others.

“We have all of these incredible people that we’re celebrating and getting to highlight and shine a light on all of this goodness that they are putting into the world. I hope that it inspires more people to do the same.”

New episodes will premiere every Thursday on Hallmark +.

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