Danica McKellar has not appeared in a Hallmark movie since 2021, but she says she does not see her move to Great American Family as simply walking away from the network that made her a holiday-movie regular.
The Wonder Years alum revisited the decision while promoting her latest Great American Christmas project, The Greatest Christmas Gift. In comments highlighted by Just Jared, McKellar said former Hallmark executive Bill Abbott was the central reason she joined Great American Family when the new network was getting started.
“People were like, ‘Oh, why did you leave Hallmark?’ I didn’t leave Hallmark,” McKellar said. “I stayed with the person, you know what I mean?” She credits Abbott with helping establish what she calls the “whole second life” of her career, the Christmas movies and romantic comedies that followed earlier roles on The Wonder Years and The West Wing.
McKellar’s final Hallmark movie was You, Me & the Christmas Trees, which premiered October 22, 2021. Four days later, Great American Media announced a four-picture agreement for her to star in and executive produce original movies for Abbott’s newly launched company.
McKellar Says She Followed the Person Behind Her Hallmark Success
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During the new Us Weekly interview, McKellar described Abbott as the person she credits with her “whole second life of a career.” Abbott spent two decades at Crown Media, Hallmark Channel’s former parent company, including 11 years as president and CEO, before leaving in 2020 and co-founding Great American Media the following year.
His tenure at Hallmark included the development of the network’s enormously successful Countdown to Christmas franchise. For McKellar, who became a Hallmark regular beginning in 2015, the relationship meant that following Abbott to his new company felt less like abandoning one professional home than continuing to work with the executive who had helped shape that phase of her career. When Abbott asked her to join Great American, McKellar said the decision made sense because of that history.
Great American Gave Her a Different Kind of Deal
The business arrangement also gave McKellar opportunities she says she had not received at Hallmark. Great American Media’s original announcement, dated October 26, 2021, detailed a four-picture agreement for her to star in and executive produce original films, beginning with The Winter Palace in January 2022.
McKellar later explained another important difference during a 2024 appearance on Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies and Spray Tans podcast. She said she never had an overall deal with Hallmark, while Great American offered her multi-picture agreements and more involvement in writing and producing.
“It is so creatively fulfilling,” she said. That additional influence has allowed her to pursue ideas she specifically wanted to explore, including dance-centered movies, while taking a larger role behind the scenes instead of appearing only as the star.
McKellar has also said Great American gave her opportunities to incorporate her faith into some projects, something that became increasingly meaningful as her personal beliefs changed after she had already agreed to join the company.
Her Faith Journey Happened After the Great American Deal
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“The timing of that, also me coming to faith, was completely not planned and one didn’t influence the other,” she said in the new interview, describing the convergence as “divine timing” and a “Godwink.”
McKellar signed with Great American in October 2021. Her public discussion of a new relationship with Christianity began in April 2022, after friend Candace Cameron Bure gave her a Bible and invited her to church. In an Instagram Live that month, McKellar described herself as only beginning that faith journey.
She Has Two Great American Christmas Movies Coming in 2026
McKellar’s partnership with Great American is continuing with two holiday movies this year. In The Christmas Yes List, she stars opposite Sam Page as Chloe Hollis, a New York professional who is overlooked for a promotion and sets out to overcome her fear of rejection by collecting a series of “no” answers from strangers.
McKellar told Us Weekly the movie is a “true rom com” and considerably lighter than her other 2026 holiday project. Great American has announced that The Christmas Yes List, adapted from Melissa Ferguson’s novel, will premiere as part of Great American Christmas, although an exact release date has not yet been announced.
She also stars opposite Matthew Marsden in The Greatest Christmas Gift, which McKellar has said was inspired by O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. According to the official Great American announcement, she plays music teacher Emma Harper, who is preparing to marry Marsden’s Caleb Bennett when an unexpected setback threatens the future they have planned.
The Greatest Christmas Gift premieres November 29 on Great American Pure Flix and airs the same day at 8 p.m. ET on Great American Family and GFAM+.