Season 2 of Hallmark Channel’s critically acclaimed time-traveling family saga The Way Home is going swimmingly, pun intended. The first three episodes of the season are already in the past, with the fourth in your immediate future, airing tonight at 9/8c and streaming tomorrow on Hallmark Movies Now. While the Landry family is famous for pond jumping through time, the cast and creative team took a moment away from New Brunswick to visit Pasadena for the TCA Winter Press Tour.
(Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Hallmark Media)
“That’s a real full-fledged pond,” revealed Alexandra Clarke, The Way Home’s Co-Creator, Co-Showrunner, and Executive Producer. She recounted the story of location scouting in preparation for the first season, falling in love with a farm and thinking they would have to go elsewhere to find a pond. “The guy who owned the property stepped in and said, ‘Well, I got a pond.’ And it turned out that it was this manmade pond that he created in the middle of the woods of his property.” While the pond is real, what viewers experience on screen is pure TV magic. “It doesn’t look like much in real life, but you see it on camera, and it is magic. I think a lot has to do with our incredible DP, Thom Best, but I truly don’t know what happens when the cameras roll on that place because it just feels ethereal. It's one of the most special places, for me, because I don’t have to jump in the pond.”
Like any pond in the middle of a wood, natural or manmade, the real body of water comes with all the characteristics of a body of water in nature, complete with tadpoles and frogs. “Our stunts department [team] are phenomenal,” bragged Chyler Leigh, who stars as Kat Landry. “We have to get wet and unwet. It's a long process to dry things out, so our stunt teams will step in and be able to make a couple of extra jumps for us, just so we can use it. We’ll film all the way up to that point, and then we can see them jump in as many times as we need, but then we’ll end up having to do the actual jump later. The water is cold and kind of gross, but when you see it, it almost feels like any time we’re actually filming there, it gets even more magical. It’s so special. It’s not the easiest place to film, but as a team, we make it work.”
“They know by now that when they jump in the pond, they get to dress up as baked potatoes afterward,” joked Evan Williams, who plays Elliot Augustine. He was referring to the mylar emergency blankets that the cast and stunt team use to warm up quickly after getting out of the pond. The reflective material was designed for insulation, but it looks like tinfoil, giving its wearer the appearance of something tasty that just came out of the oven. “Usually it’s wintertime,” he added of the show’s filming schedule. The cast also dispelled another piece of the on-screen magic: Underwater shots are done in a swimming pool, with tents above to make the surface look like a pond, and ferns that cover the smooth floor.
(Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Hallmark Media)
“I think the pond, as a character almost in our series, has also transformed so much,” shared Sadie Laflamme-Snow, who plays Kat’s daughter Alice Dhawan. Fans of the show know how special the mother/daughter dynamic is, since Sadie travels back in time to meet her mother at her age. “You read the first two episodes, and you're like, wow, this device is so exciting. I get to go back and meet my family and kind of integrate myself in this happy time in their life before tragedy took Jacob and Colton away. But then, we learn more rules about the pond and how it can be a force of good or a force of what might feel like evil to a character. And that pond can challenge us. It can keep you from where you want to go, or it can send you where you need to go, even if you don't want to be there. And I think that's what's so exciting is we get our scripts and our jaws are just on the floor every time.”
The Way Home continues to surprise its cast and viewers, but this moment away from the set also allowed time for gratitude. “One of the great beauties of this show is the multigenerational three-women dynamics,” explained Andie MacDowell, who stars as Kat’s mother and Alice’s grandmother, Del Landry. “I represent women of a certain age… I'm not a cliché character. I'm not your typical older woman. I'm multifaceted, strong, interesting, and dynamic. That's been rewarding for me. And I think it's a very important part… The pond adds this excitement, and it's a wonderful tool for storytelling. But, I believe at the heart of the show, it is about these very well-written characters that people attach themselves to.” Andie MacDowell also shared her differing approach to playing Del in the present vs. the past. “In the present day, I take on a lot of masculine energy because she's lost her husband, she's lost her son, she's having to run a farm. So the reality of that is that she's going to lose a lot of her softer sides, which helped me play the younger part… I could give my younger self these more feminine attributes and then really go in hard for a tougher person in the present day.”
Season 2 introduces a new era in the family’s history, but one that shouldn’t feel out of left field for eagle-eyed viewers. “That was something that came even with Season 1, and the first introduction of the family almanac into the story” Alexandra Clarke explained about the new era of time traveling. “1814 was a really interesting time in New Brunswick history, and we were fascinated by that era, and the idea of going back to it was so compelling. New Brunswick at that point was just wilderness, and very scary in a weird way, but also beautiful, and very natural, and we were always, as writers in the writers’ room, really compelled to tell a story in that era that we obviously did set up a little bit in Season 1, but really wanted to explore in Season 2.”
Whether they’re in the present or the past, the Landry family saga continues to unfold in Season 2 of The Way Home. In addition to streaming on Hallmark Movies Now, the first season of this Hallmark original series is also available to stream on other platforms including Hulu and Peacock.