It’s been nearly 10 years since Aussie Daniel Lissing made his debut on Hallmark Channel as the original Hunk in Red Serge on When Calls the Heart. The actor became a favorite among Hearties for his portrayal of Mountie Jack Thornton, who fell for schoolteacher Elizabeth Thatcher (played by Erin Krakow) in one of the network’s sweetest romances. (And it’s Hallmark we’re talking about, so that’s saying something.)
Though the actor left the show at the end of Season 5, he continues to be a favorite among fans.
Since he’s super cool — and we miss seeing him on the show — here are 12 facts about the actor, musician, producer, and businessman:
1. He was a soap star in Australia
Before moving to the United States, Lissing appeared on the Australian soap opera Home and Away. He is one of many actors who had roles on the show before embarking on a career in Hollywood. Heather Ledger, Isla Fisher, Chris Hemsworth, and Melissa George also appeared in the series.
2. He is a talented musician
Lissing told Entertainment Tonight that he played and sang in bars in Australia before making the move to the States. He focused on acting after he arrived, but he continues to play guitar and sing. Here’s a clip of him singing a duet with his When Calls the Heart co-star Erin Krakow:
3. Speaking of Erin Krakow, Lissing said he would love to work with her again
“About two or three years ago, I sent a big proposal to Hallmark pitching a Christmas movie with Erin and I in modern day, and they didn’t think it was the right time,” he said during a 2020 interview. “Maybe it is now?”
(Well, Hallmark? Is it?)
4. He left When Calls the Heart for personal reasons
Fans were shocked when Lissing’s character, Jack Thornton, was killed at the end of Season 5, especially since he had just married Elizabeth (Erin Krakow).
When asked about his decision to leave the series after so many years, he made it clear the specifics would remain private.
“Circumstances arose for me where I needed to leave When Calls the Heart for reasons that are very personal to me,” he said in a Facebook Live event. “I went to Hallmark and they were nothing but supportive of me. I went to the girls and they were nothing but supportive of me.”
5. He doesn’t regret his decision to leave When Calls the Heart…
In a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Lissing talked about how different his life would be if he had stayed on the show. For one thing, he might never have met his wife, who he fell for on a trip to Iceland. (She is from Poland originally, but they met in a Reykjavik bar.)
“It’s funny the way the world works,” he said. “If I had stayed on the show, and been there during season 6 and shot and all that kind of stuff, then I wouldn’t have met Nadia, you know? And I wouldn’t be getting married and I wouldn’t be at this place in my life where I feel really in line with what I’m meant to be doing personally and professionally, so no regrets at all. …How can I look at my future wife and say, ‘Oh, I should’ve stayed on this job?’ She’s my life, you know? That’s my personal life and that’s exponentially more important to me than a job.”
6. ….but he does miss his Hallmark family
In the same ET interview, Lissing said he loved his time at Hallmark.
“It is a family, and that aspect of things I really miss,” he said. “I love all the cast and the people at Hallmark. My time with Hallmark was nothing but positive and I’m truly grateful to be a part of it.”
7. He is open to reprising his role as Jack Thornton (kind of)
He did it once, appearing as the spirit of Jack Thornton on When Hope Calls: A Country Christmas in 2021.
In an interview, he said it was emotional to be back in his old costume, though the boots were killer.
“I forgot how hard the boots were to put on! So, I was like, ‘Oh yeah! That’s right. The boots!’ You forget that stuff,” he told Entertainment Tonight.
But once he was back in his mountie uniform, he got all the feels.
“I am so grateful to have played [Thornton], because that character was a really big part of my time, and my life, for a span from 2013 to 2021,” he said. “That’s a long time to do it. There was a break in between, and it was just for this; for this one moment again with Jack. I felt a lot of gratitude.”
But Lissing made it clear he would only return for brief appearances (as opposed to rejoining the cast), which makes sense because his character is — um, well — dead.
8. He is more than just a pretty face
When Lissing arrived in the States at the age of 30, he focused on his acting career. When he was successful, he used the money he earned to invest in several companies, including a plant-based fast-food restaurant called The Burger Patch.
His wife is also a smart cookie. When the pair first met, she had just — at the ripe old age of 25 — finished earning a master’s degree in business.
You go, girl.
9. Yeah, he is married (sigh)
Daniel and Nadia tied the knot in a private ceremony in 2022. The pair had originally planned a wedding in Bali but had to reschedule because of COVID.
11. He is a huge supporter of the South Sydney Rabbitohs
The rugby team is one of the oldest in Australia and has a massive and devout following.
In an interview for the team’s Facebook page, Lissing became emotional talking about how much the team meant to him.
“That was our happy place growing up,” he said.
12. He is not just a Hallmark hunk
Before joining the cast of When Calls the Heart, Lissing played Navy SEAL James King in the series Last Resort. He also starred opposite Victoria Justice in the MTV show Eye Candy.
During his time on When Calls the Heart, he had a recurring role in Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce. Since leaving Hallmark, he has guest-starred in the TV shows S.W.A.T. and The Rookie.
In 2021, he starred in A Christmas Star for Great American Family. In 2022, he played opposite Merritt Patterson in Catering Christmas. We are keeping our fingers crossed that he makes an appearance on the network’s 2023 Great American Christmas.
Movie star. Screenwriter. Podcast host. Carpenter? Seven fascinating things you need to know about Hallmark legend Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell has been entertaining Hallmark audiences for years, starring in more than a dozen movies for the network. In 2022 he headlined Dating the Delaneys with Rachel Boston and Three Wise Men and a Baby with Andrew Walker and Tyler Hynes.
But the Canadian actor is more than just a handsome face. Here are some fascinating facts about the star:
1. He trained to be a carpenter.
In a 2018 interview on My Devotional Thoughts, Campbell said he always thought he would work as a carpenter.
“Through my entire adolescence and throughout high school, I was planning to build houses,” he said. “I just loved the idea of building houses, and I honestly, I didn’t consider any other profession.”
But after graduating from high school and working as a professional for four years, Campbell changed his mind. He said he remembered thinking, “This isn’t the job that I thought it was.”
He ended up taking an acting class and quickly fell in love. While attending theater school, he was spotted by an agent who signed him after graduation. In 2004, he booked the role of Billy Keikeya on the re-boot of Battlestar Galactica. He went on to have roles in The Dead Zone, John Doe, Black Sash, Andromeda, Scrubs, and Knight Rider.
He booked his first Hallmark movie, Window Wonderland, in 2013. The rest, as they say, is history.
2. Before he joined the network, he had never seen a Hallmark movie.
Campbell, who grew up in White Rock, British Columbia, said he didn’t know much about Hallmark before he began working for the network.
“I had an awareness of what the Hallmark network was,” he said. “Even before I started working with them, they had set up shop in Vancouver and were producing a fair amount of films. But I didn’t really get a sense of the volume they were producing or the tone, quality, and style until I actually did Window Wonderland.”
3. He is now a ride-or-die Hallmark fan
Window Wonderland premiered in 2013. Campbell followed up with the Hallmark movies Surprised By Love in 2014 and Once Upon A Holiday in 2015.
“Once I got a sense of what Hallmark was all about, I was hooked,” he said. “I wanted to do more and more and more.”
He said he especially loves the content now that he is a father.
“Hallmark Channel is the perfect place for me to be working right now,” he said. “I really like the content, and now that I have a family, it’s a nice sort of pleasant content where I don’t have to worry about racy, questionable stuff. It’s definitely the direction that I feel I’m headed. I’m always open to doing movies or series with Hallmark, whatever they have for me. I would always jump at the chance.”
4. He is a skilled screenwriter.
Campbell decided to try his hand at screenwriting after the birth of his son, Kingston. He had taken some time off from acting and ended up pitching an idea to Hallmark about a romantic comedy set on a beach. His idea was made into the 2017 movie Sun, Sand & Romance, which he starred in with his former Battlestar Galactica castmate Tricia Helfer.
He went on to write Christmas by Starlight, which he also starred in, as well as An Unexpected Christmas, which starred Bethany Joy Lenz and Tyler Hynes, and Christmas at Castle Hart, which starred Lacey Chabert and Stuart Townsend.
5. He co-wrote the Countdown to Christmas hit Three Wise Men and a Baby
Campbell and his Christmas by Starlight co-star Kimberley Sustad had been writing together for years when Hallmark approached them with the idea for Three Wise Men and a Baby.
“They kind of planted the seed and then [Kimberley] and I grew the tree,” he said in an interview with Media Village.
Three Wise Men and a Baby, which premiered during Hallmark’s 2022 Countdown to Christmas event, went on to become the most-watched cable movie of the year.
6. He has been happily married since 2009.
Campbell and Lori Metz, a divorce and life coach, eloped in Vancouver in 2009. They followed the private affair with a celebration in Palm Springs two years later with friends and family.
In an Instagram post, Campbell shared photos from his wedding day including a snap of the two on a tandem bike.
“I’ll ride that two-seater with ya anywhere the durned wind takes us,” he wrote in the caption. “I love you.”
7. He had a podcast called Two Pauls in a Podcast. It was awesome.
Paul Greene was Campbell’s first guest on the series. (Episodes are still on his website.) During the show, the pair revealed their unlikely connection. It turned out Lori once dated a man who is not only best friends with Greene but is his son Oliver’s godfather. Lori even attended Greene’s first wedding.
Brendan Penny shares his favorite scenes from Chesapeake Shores
Hallmark star Brendan Penny recently revealed his favorite scenes from the hit series Chesapeake Shores. In an interview with a British news site, Penny talked about how important the first season was in developing his character Kevin O’Brien.
“Some of my favorite moments were in the first season when I’m kind of blown up and I’m in the hospital bed in my house and I’m all messed up,” Penny said
Brendan Penny
Penny has talked before about his first season on the series, which premiered in 2016 on Hallmark Channel.
In the show, he played Kevin O’Brien, a war veteran who returns to his small hometown in Maryland following a tour of duty. He stays with his father (played by Treat Williams) and his grandmother (played by Dianne Ladd), while he attempts to overcome the physical and emotional toll military service has taken on him.
“A lot of people were saying how it helped them communicate a little bit better with some of their loved ones,” he said. “It was really nice.”
Chesapeake Shores
Based on a series of books by author Sherryl Woods, Chesapeake Shores starred Meghan Ory as a single mother who returns home to her large Irish family following a divorce. She is immediately thrown back into the drama of her large family and she reconnects with ex-boyfriend Trace Riley, who was played by Jesse Metcalfe.
Her siblings were played by Penny, Emilie Ullerup, Laci Mailey, and Andrew Francis. The series ran for six seasons on Hallmark before being canceled last year.
Working with Hallmark
Brendan Penny rose to fame playing Detective Brian Lucas in Motive, a Canadian crime drama that also starred Kristin Lehman, Louis Ferreira, and Lauren Holly. He had roles in Smallville, Supernatural, Whistler, and Blade: The Series.
He made his Hallmark debut in the 2014 movie Along Came a Nanny. Since then he has starred in A Dash of Love, Magical Christmas Ornaments, Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe, Easter Under Wraps, The Secret Ingredient, Beverly Hills Wedding, and ’Tis The Season for Love.
“I’ll do Hallmark movies for the rest of my life if they let me,” he said in a 2017 interview with TV Goodness. “It’s always some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Everybody is there to have a good time and do a good job and to make something that makes people feel good. I laughed so completely on every single one of those movies.”
Five fascinating facts you didn’t know about When Calls the Heart star Erin Krakow
For the past 10 years, Erin Krakow has starred on Hallmark’s longest-running original series When Calls the Heart. The Philadelphia native has also starred in the Hallmark movies A Cookie Cutter Christmas, Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen, Finding Father Christmas, Engaging Father Christmas, and Marrying Father Christmas. Here are a few fascinating facts about the actress:
1. Erin Krakow is a graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City
Krakow became serious about acting at a young age and attended the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida. After graduation, she moved to New York to study drama at Juilliard, which has trained many of the country’s finest actors. Fellow graduates include Robin Williams, Kelsey Grammer, Jessica Chastain, Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, and Adam Driver.
2. When Calls the Heart was not her first television show
Before she took on the role of Elizabeth Thatcher Thornton, Krakow played Army Specialist Tanya Gabriel in the television series Army Wives.
The show also starred Catherine Bell, who played Cassie Nightingale in Hallmark’s Good Witch film and television series.
Krakow told a reporter that she considers Bell a good friend.
“I LOVED working with Catherine Bell on ARMY WIVES,” Krakow said. “She was so kind to me and has become a dear friend! She’s also incredibly talented!”
3. She wasn’t the original Elizabeth
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Krakow playing the role of Elizabeth (Thatcher) Thornton. However, the actress wasn’t originally cast as in the part.
When Hallmark Media (then called Crown Media) decided to make a film version of the first book in Janette Oke’s Canadian West series, the director chose actress Poppy Drayton to play the role of Elizabeth. The British actress did a great job, but when it came time to cast the TV series, the director went with Krakow.
In an interview, Krakow said she hopes to work with Drayton at some point.
“I’ll always feel connected to Poppy through Elizabeth,” Krakow said. “Hopefully we’ll get to work on something together soon. That would be special.”
4. She has played a bride onscreen three times (so far…)
The first time Krakow got married onscreen was during Season 5 of When Calls the Heart, when her character, Elizabeth, married Mountie Jack Thornton (played by Daniel Lissing). In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Lissing said the pair made a request to write the vows themselves.
“Erin and I had sat down together… and I talked to her about the potential of writing our own vows, as Jack and as Elizabeth,” he said. “So we took that to the producers and they were like, ‘Well, yeah, you guys know the characters better than anyone else does,’ and so we actually wrote our vows.”
Later that year, Krakow played a bride in the Hallmark Channel movie Marrying Father Christmas, when her character, Miranda Chester, married Ian McAndrick (played by Niall Matter).
Krakow also played a bride in the 2021 Hallmark movie It Was Always You, though her character ended up not getting married to her original fiancé. In the romantic comedy, Krakow’s character, Elizabeth, realizes she has feelings for the groom’s brother (in a tasteful, Hallmark-y way), who was played by Tyler Hynes.
The actress requested Hynes for the part, and the two became good friends.
“…You work with some people and it feels very natural and like you’ve known that person or have been working with them for a long time,” Krakow said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “And that was the case between the two of us. Tyler is an incredible actor. He’s very collaborative. He’s always wanting to elevate the work.”
5. The first scene she ever filmed for When Calls the Heart was with Lori Loughlin
In the pilot episode of When Calls the Heart, Elizabeth accidentally burned down the teacher’s cottage where she was supposed to live. A local widow named Abigail Stanton (played by Loughlin) took Elizabeth in, and the two soon became good friends.
Her second scene was with Daniel Lissing, and Krakow said she had a feeling that it was the start of something special.
Hallmark Channel has not yet released a premiere date for Season 10 of When Calls the Heart. In 2022, Season 9 premiered in March.
Before she was royalty, Meghan Markle was a Hallmark star
Before she was royalty, Meghan Markle was a Hallmark star. (She also read The Rules.)
Before she was royalty, Meghan Markle was a TV star. Some viewers knew her as Rachel Zane from the series Suits. Others watched her on CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. Hallmark fans knew her from the two romantic comedies she made with the network, Dater’s Handbook and When Sparks Fly.
On Monday, Hallmark will air Dater’s Handbook as part of a Valentine’s Day movie marathon. In the film, Markle plays Cassandra Barber, a young woman who is tired of picking the wrong guy. She decides to follow the advice given by a relationship expert in her best-seller The Dater’s Handbook.
In the end, she finds herself caught in a love triangle with two men: reliable George (played by Jonathan Scarfe) and fun-loving Robert (played by Kristoffer Polaha).
“It’s hard to change old habits and place your faith in the experts, especially when your heart tells you something different,” reads a synopsis from the network.
“I think the reason Cassandra still has to refer to a handbook is the same reason all of us are trying to find our way and a little bit of guidance and trying to balance having it all,” Markle said in an interview to promote the film. “And having it all isn’t easy. I think we’re all still striving for that, so I think watching Cassandra’s journey is pretty fun.”
Happily ever after
Markle met her own true love on a blind date arranged by friends in 2016. She and Prince Harry were married two years later in a ceremony attended by Queen Elizabeth II at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. The couple welcomed son Archie in May 2019.
“It’s magic. It’s pretty amazing,” she said during her first public appearance after giving birth. “I mean, I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy.”
The couple welcomed their second child, Lilibet Diana, in June 2021.
Hallmark history
Markle made her first movie with Hallmark in 2014. She played journalist Amy Peterson in When Sparks Fly opposite Christopher Jacot. In the movie, her character returns to her small hometown for to write a newspaper feature about her parents’ fireworks business. When she arrives home, she is enlisted by a friend to help her plan a Fourth of July wedding to Amy’s ex-boyfriend Hank (played by Jacot). As Amy and Hank spend time together, they are reminded of why they were so good together and old feelings resurface.
Dater’s Handbook followed two years later. In an interview to promote the movie, Markle talked about the futility of playing games when it comes to serious relationships.
“I remember when I was in high school and college we were still reading The Rules — do you remember that book?” she said. “So this is very much like that. And all those different things they would say like, ‘Be a creature unlike any other,’ and it’s really about playing these games but at the end of the day, when it comes down to finding the person that you’re right for, that’s not the person you’re going to play games with.”