Actor Jonathan Bennett (“Mean Girls” fame) chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about starring as Brandon Mitchell in the new original holiday film “The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls,” which premieres on December 18 on the Hallmark Channel. He also spoke about the 2021 Christmas Con in New Jersey.
Bennett stars alongside such actors as Robert Buckley (“One Tree Hill”), Brad Harder (“Aurora Teagarden Mysteries”), Treat Williams (“Chesapeake Shores”), Ana Ayora, and Sharon Lawrence (“NYPD Blue”).
“The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls” is a new original movie that premieres on Saturday, December 18 on the Hallmark Channel as part of the network’s “Countdown to Christmas” programming event.
On filming “The Christmas House 2,” Bennett said, “This is one of the best Hallmark Christmas movies ever made, in my opinion. It has twice the humor of the first one.”
R.C. Newey directed the holiday movie from a script that was written by Erin Rodman, which is based on the characters created by Robert Buckley and Erin Rodman.
Synopsis of the new holiday movie
For the last two years, Mike (Robert Buckley) and Andi (Ana Ayora) have been settling into their home. Phylis (Sharon Lawrence) and Bill (Treat Williams) have eased into retirement and rediscovered the joy in their marriage. “Sharon Lawrence is so much fun and what is so great about this cast is that we actually act like a real family. We have a group chat that goes on all year round and we tease each other all year long as a real family would do. Our cast has so much love for each other,” he said.
Mike’s brother Brandon (Jonathan Bennett) and his husband Jake (Brad Harder) are on the wild adventure that is being parents to two young children. The entire Mitchell family agrees to meet again for Christmas in the quaint town of Rhinebeck, New York.
All is going according to plan for a relaxing holiday until Mike is asked to participate in a celebrity home decorating reality TV show. After some convincing from everyone else, Mike is excited to share the famed Christmas House with the world. When Mike’s opponent in the competition drops out at the last minute, Brandon (Jonathan Bennett) is tasked with rivaling to make for an epic, brother versus brother Christmas
decorating showdown.
Will this competition bring lots of love and joy for the Mitchell family or will it only bring mayhem?
Bennett had favorable words about working with Brad Harder. “Brad is great,” he said. “Brad literally stepped in as my TV husband, and he and my real-life fiance have a lot of similarities when it comes to dealing with me on and off-screen. Brad and my fiance text each other to make sure I am focused, happy, and staying sane on set.”
The same holds true about co-star Robert Buckley. Bennett shared that he and Buckley have a real-life brother relationship off-screen where they tease each other.
Christmas Con 2021
On December 10, 11 & 12, 2021, Bennett is looking forward to being a part of and hosting the 2021 Christmas Con in New Jersey. “I am very excited for Christmas Con,” he said. “It is always fun to get together with all the fans and remember why we make all of these amazing movies for the Hallmark Channel. It will be so much fun.”
“It really is great to have in-person events again,” he admitted. “These in-person events are so important because they connect the people that watch these movies with the people that make the movies and that’s such a special moment since they get to see firsthand the happiness that these movies bring to people.”
To learn more about the 2021 Christmas Con, visit the That’s 4 Entertainment website.
For his fans, Benett remarked about “The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls,” “The fans will get to see the Mitchell family in more depth, and the audience can see that it’s not a perfect family. They have their quirks and they are trying to throw the perfect Christmas but there is no such thing as the perfect Christmas. All the quirks that they have makes the family beautiful since they are able to come together and celebrate all the different people in the family for exactly who they are and exactly how they act. We all support and love each other and that’s what I want people to see when they watch this film.”
“This movie has twice the laughs and twice the heart that the first one does,” he reiterated,
To learn more about actor Jonathan Bennett, follow him on Instagram and check out his IMDb page.
For more information on “The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls,” visit the official Hallmark website.
Read More: Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos chatted with Jonathan Bennett back in October about his social media series “On Wednesday We Cook Pork.”
