Kansas City doubles as Nashville in Hallmark Christmas movie about Grand Ole Opry
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Hallmark filmed A Grand Ole Opry Christmas in Kansas City, portraying Nashville.
- Local businesses hosted sets, background actors, and holiday scenes for weeks.
- KC film office credits 2023 tax incentives and crew base for attracting projects.
A few months ago, when location scouts approached Duke Cuda about using his family’s small business in a new Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, Cuda was a bit, well, careful.
You have to be when you run a jewelry store.
“It was like, ‘OK, are they trying to case the place?’ So that was a little nerve-wracking at the beginning,” said the manager of Brookside Jewelry, who now laughs about his initial wariness.
The request was legitimate. The Hallmark Channel came to Kansas City in early September to film one of its new holiday movies for this season, “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas.” It debuts at 7 p.m. Central Time on Saturday, Nov. 29 on the Hallmark Channel.
A film crew spent a day at Cuda’s place, where they filled the store and jewelry cases with Christmas greenery and other holiday decor. “They had two or three massive boxes of Christmas decorations, which I’m sure they use for all their Christmas movies,” he said. “And it really felt like Christmas in here even though it was 90 degrees outside.”
Kansas City is never mentioned in the movie because it is standing in for Nashville. This Hallmark-Grand Ole Opry collaboration honors the 100th anniversary of the famous country music hall in Nashville.
The film stars Hallmark Channel favorites Nikki DeLoach (”Curious Caterer Mysteries,” “Our Holiday Story”) and Kristoffer Polaha (”A Biltmore Christmas,” “The Christmas Quest”).
Country star Brad Paisley wrote and performed original music for the film.
Over a one-week span in early September, kept purposefully low-key, cast and crew filmed at several places around the metro, including Lee’s Summit and the historic Crestwood Shops along 55th Street between Brookside Boulevard and Oak Street.
Spoiler alert: “Watch” for the scene filmed in the jewelry store, which could prove pivotal.
Once he verified the project was, in fact, a Hallmark movie, “we jumped at the opportunity,” Cuda said. “My mom loves to watch Hallmark films. It’s something you don’t get to say every day, that you were in a Hallmark movie.”
This is the second Hallmark Channel Christmas movie filmed in Kansas City, following last year’s “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story” — which was so popular it spawned a second Hallmark NFL rom-com set in Buffalo this year.
“We’re definitely excited for the release of Hallmark’s latest Christmas movie ‘Grand Ole Opry Christmas,’ but we’re especially proud that the majority of the movie was filmed in our area,” said Rachel Kephart, director of the KC Film Office.
“It may seem counterintuitive, but projects choosing to film in our area despite the story not being set here, is a huge win for our local industry.
“It highlights how versatile our region is in terms of locations, and proves that our offerings, both in the form of local and state film incentives, and our strong crew base, make us competitive when projects are considering a variety of potential locations.”
Kansas City is reaping benefits from a 2023 tax incentive program designed to attract filmmakers to Missouri with tax credits that lower production costs.
Hosting Hallmark again and having Jason Sudeikis bring “Ted Lasso” film crews to town over the summer “were significant accomplishments, not just for Kansas City and our visibility as a destination for film and television, but to our local crew and vendors who make these projects possible,” Kephart said.
“Though we can’t share too many details about what’s to come, it’s looking like the spring will be a busy time for our film industry.”
The Hallmark movie was the second film shot in Kansas City in which Rob Dodson participated this year as a background extra.
Over the summer the newspaper retiree had a non-speaking role in “The Basics of Philosophy,” an independent film from director/screenwriter Paul Schrader (”American Gigolo,” “Taxi Driver”).
Filmed here in July, the movie stars Jack Huston, nephew of Academy Award winner Angelica Huston, as a repressed university philosophy professor grappling with guilt over a past decision in his life.
Dodson played Huston’s dying father — basically a body in a bed.
He’s upright and in western wear in the Hallmark movie.
Dodson and his wife, Connie, in her first film gig, played country-western royalty, guests at a swanky party, circa 1995, filmed at a mansion in Lee’s Summit. They can be seen in the background of a party scene photo on HallmarkChannel.com.
A lucky KC penny
The movie is sort of “It’s a Wonderful Life” meets “Back to the Future” with a country twang.
DeLoach’s character, Gentry Woods, is the daughter of the late country music icon Jett Woods, half of the famed duo Winter and Woods.
She has abandoned her dream of a songwriting career and distanced herself from her father’s country legacy after his death in a car accident 30 years ago. Still dealing with bittersweet memories, she hesitates when the Grand Ole Opry invites her to represent her dad at its centennial Christmas celebration.
Through movie magic, she is transported back to 1995 as she’s seated in one of the Opry’s iconic oak church pews.
Through Hallmark romance magic, her lifelong friend Mac, played by Polaha, winds up in 1995 with her. There, Gentry learns things about her father she never knew. She is also inspired to finish a song she began writing as a teen.
Dodson has worked part-time in Kansas City’s movie-making circles for more than 30 years. (Full disclosure: He worked nearly 40 years for The Kansas City Star before retiring in 2016.)
In 1992 he was a stand-in for actor John Mahoney when the comedy-drama “Article 99” was filmed here with Ray Liotta and Kiefer Sutherland. Dodson stepped in for him one weekend when Mahoney flew to Los Angeles to audition for a TV role — which turned out to be the dad on “Frasier.”
Dodson hasn’t seen filmmaking in Kansas City as busy as it is now, a bonus for performers and production crews wanting to live and work here.
Like others who have worked on Hallmark productions, he appreciates how the actors and crews respect the work of background actors.
He made a special connection with DeLoach. Before the first of two days filming “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas,” he researched the lead actors and saw they would be working on DeLoach’s birthday, Sept. 9.
Coincidentally, the same week that KC casting director Heather Laird contacted him for the role, he found a near-mint Lincoln penny from 1995 in his loose change. He gifted it to DeLoach, a memento from Kansas City she now keeps on her desk.
KC businesses in the spotlight
Marliese Mosley’s Crestwood Flowers was decorated for fall when the Hallmark crew set up in early September to film at her shop on East 55th Street.
“We couldn’t say that we were being filmed or anything,” she said. “You have to sign a contract saying you can’t tell anybody about it until it’s actually done.”
She didn’t think it was odd that in the movie her shop is in Tennessee, not Missouri.
“With Hallmark being here I think they’re just trying to use Kansas City more for their film making,” she said. “I think that’s where they’re switching their mindset to, which would be nice for the Kansas City area.”
Only Kansas Citians, she said, will know that’s not Nashville in the movie, she said. “Nobody else is going to recognize it.”
She was surprised, though, that it took all day to film a five-minute scene of Polaha in the shop. Her experience began the day before filming, when a crew “threw up Christmas in the front of the shop,” she said. “It was so Christmas, outside and inside.
“It was so cool. I’ve never seen anything like that before and it was so fun to watch behind the scenes, to see what it takes to film even that short of a snippet.
“My mom is an avid Hallmark watcher and she knew the stars of the show. She was like a little girl in a candy store. She loved it. She’s 83 and for that to happen for her in her lifetime ...”
Polaha interviewed her mom, Ruth Ann Swearingin, and posted it on his social-media pages.
“They’re celebrities and they’re asking my mom if they could take pictures with her. What does that say to you?” Mosley said.
The experience was a full-circle moment for Swearingin, who opened the floral shop 47 years ago. She used to work for Hallmark and bought the shop with her Hallmark stock shares, her daughter said.
“I don’t know exactly where I’m going to be. I haven’t made any plans,” Mosley said of Saturday, Nov. 29, when the movie premieres. “But I know my mom is going to be sitting there in front of the TV.”
The movie debuts the weekend before the shopping area’s annual Holidays in Crestwood fundraiser for the Child Protection Center, Dec. 4-6, during which 10% of all sales goes to the child advocacy program.
The Hallmark crew also set up shop at Peruvian Connection in Crestwood, where manager Mary Anne Ellison watched the wardrobe folks stock her store, known for its artisan-made clothing, with vintage 1995 pieces for a shopping scene.
The fact that film crews are coming to Kansas City tells Ellison that “Kansas City is one of those places where people are often surprised by how friendly and beautiful and how easy it is to be here,” she said.
“I think Kansas City is one of those towns that surprises people about how wonderful it is.”
Cuda at Brookside Jewelry hasn’t told anyone but a few family members and friends about the movie. Their contract prohibited them from using the movie information for advertising, from blasting on social media that they’re the only jewelry store in Kansas City to be featured in a Hallmark movie.
But for sure, he said, as more film crews find their way here, Kansas City is camera ready.
“I think Los Angeles has more to be afraid of than just football now,” said the Chiefs fan. “We’re taking their films.”
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