Actor Jesse Metcalfe, who played Trace Riley on the Hallmark shows Chesapeake Shores, is returning to TV. The actor will star in the V. C. Andrews Dawn Cutler Series, a set of movies for Lifetime that will also feature Donna Mills, Fran Drescher, and Brec Bassinger.
“So excited to be a part of this amazing cast, playing ‘ORMAND LONGCHAMP’ in the new @lifetime movie series by the iconic author V.C. Andrews!!!” Metcalfe wrote in an Instagram post.
The post, which was “liked” by more than 9,000 people — including Hallmark’s Randy Pope — featured an article from Deadline about the new series.
Jesse Metcalfe returning to TV
Metcalfe has made several appearances on television since he announced in 2021 that he was leaving the hit Hallmark series Chesapeake Shores.
He competed on Season 29 of Dancing With the Stars and made an appearance on the British show The Masked Dancer. He also starred in the romantic comedy Harmony From the Heart for Great American Family, a new network started by the former CEO of Hallmark, Bill Abbott.
The actor revealed in 2021 that he was leaving Chesapeake Shores shortly before production began on Season 5.
“I just felt that there wasn’t really anything else I could do with the character,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Metcalfe made his final appearance on the show during the second episode of Season 5, which aired on August 22, 2021 His character, Trace Riley, left town after a quick goodbye to Abby O’Brien (played by Meghan Ory). When she asked him where he was going, he said he wasn’t sure.
“I think there’s something missing inside of me,” Trace said. “I tried to find it in my music. I tried to find it with us. Now I’m going to try to find it in myself.”
Working with Lifetime
Metcalfe got his start on television in 1999, when he began playing Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald on the soap opera Passions. He went on to star in Desperate Housewives and the re-boot of Dallas.
In 2015, he starred in the Hallmark Christmas movie A Country Wedding. He followed that with Christmas Next Door during Hallmark’s 2017 Countdown to Christmas. Metcalfe has also played retired Boston PD Detective Jeff Jackson in the Martha’s Vineyard Mystery series.
Earlier in the year, Lifetime’s parent company, A+E Networks, acquired the rights to author V. C. Andrews’ library of bestselling novels for screen adaptation. Over the summer, 10 million viewers tuned in to see the limited Lifetime series Flowers in the Attic: The Origin.