Ashley Williams and Andrew Walker Take PEOPLE Behind the Scenes of Hallmark Channel’s Jingle Bell Run (Exclusive)

To many actors, the typical 15-day filming schedule on a Hallmark Channel movie sounds like nothing short of a Christmas miracle. To see it in action, it’s a well-oiled, well-tinseled, twinkle-light-covered magic machine.

As many know, most of these movies film in the summertime — and this weekend’s entry, Jingle Bell Run, was no exception.

The movie sees elementary school teacher Avery (Ashley Williams) and retired hockey star Wes (Andrew Walker) reluctantly paired up to compete on a holiday-themed Amazing Race-style reality show called The Great Holiday Dash. Naturally, sparks fly as they trek across the country for challenges relating to holiday traditions in various U.S. cities.

With Williams and Walker as guides, PEOPLE had the rare opportunity to spend a day on the set of the movie to see how the seasonal sausage gets made.

The Arrival

It’s already in the 60s and sunny at around 10 a.m. on June 13, 2024, when I arrive in an upscale neighborhood outside Vancouver, Canada. I’m dropped off in front of an Adobe-style home that looks like it belongs in Santa Fe, New Mexico — which works out well since Avery and Wes’ challenge today is set in the southwestern city.

Nearly two dozen crew members are adding holiday decorations and finishing touches to the home’s entrance, a gate with a sign declaring it “Casa Estrella.” Just beyond the gate, a bunch of piñatas have already been hung with care like stockings from a large pergola for the next scene. And behind them, I find Williams in the shade in a turtleneck sweater, sitting with Walker, who’s sporting a thick shirt and his character’s red team jacket.

Despite the heat, both actors are smiling and cracking jokes. Walker, 45, doesn’t hesitate to define the appeal of filming holiday movies at any time. “We get to celebrate Christmas two or three times a year. And you get swept up in the magic of it all every time,” he says.

To prepare me for the scene they’re about to start shooting, Walker says that characters Wes and Avery have been “at odds for most of the story. We have different approaches to getting things done but I’m quickly realizing that she’s an asset to me, I’m an asset to her. And at this point, we have a budding interest in each other. There are sparkles.”

Adds Williams, 46, “Mm-hmm, yeah. We had a little flirty chat. It’s been essentially planes, trains and automobiles to get here and we’re in the top four at this point in the movie.”

An hour later, the set and the crew are ready to roll, and the actors do a few quick walk-throughs before cameras start rolling just after 11:15 a.m.. The scene sees Avery and Wes running up to the gate thinking they’re the last to arrive and learning that they’re, in fact, the first.

The action moves quickly from here: Walker and Williams do two or three takes, the cameras shift to get every angle, and they do several more with each new setup. Within an hour, it’s time to move on to the next scene in a different location on the property. 

No Wasted Time

As the crew breaks down the gate scene to set up another where the host explains the rules of the next challenge, Williams and Walker head to the massive garage attached to the home next door, where a makeshift photo studio awaits.

Here, the actors crack each other up as they pose for character portraits — both separate and together — and try to pretend they’re running for images that can now be seen in the movie’s poster. 

When they’re finished, it’s not quite time to start rolling again, so we sit in a grassy area on the edge of the property. “The amount of locations in this movie is insane,” Walker says as he pulls an orange from a children’s backpack (a gag gift from Williams), peels it and offers me a slice. “How do you even find a place like this?”

“Our director, Lucie Guest, said that there’s 63 different sets in this movie,” Williams says with awe. “And for the budgets that we work in, this is a very ambitious film.”

It’s also Walker’s first Hallmark movie with a female director, a deficit Williams is working personally to rectify with her Make Her Mark director training program. Both actors admit that making Guest laugh is among their goals as they film most scenes. “That’s based off trust,” says Walker. “We trust that if she laughs, she’ll also tell us what we should and shouldn’t be doing.”

Says Williams, “She is funny, nurturing and puts everybody at ease. Everybody really steps in line. I think, when they respect the person above them. And Lucie’s just such a perfect example of how a woman can do that.”

By 1:30 p.m., Williams, Walker and the rest of the cast are rehearsing the dialogue-heavy scene, set amid a slew of hanging piñatas, and at 1:51 they begin filming. Between takes, the actors crack jokes with one another, take selfies and make social videos. A bug flies into Williams’ eye and she heroically attempts to keep filming. After a brief pause to remove it — her eye wouldn’t stop tearing up, and it looked painful! — they were all back at it.

One More for the Road

Around 3:30 p.m., everyone took a break for lunch, and Williams, Walker and I returned to our grassy spot to eat and chat. Nearby, the makeup artists stood in a circle and did a round of squats as we cheered them on. The network favorites reflected on their fans.

“Nurses and teachers, those are like our No. 1 and No. 2 fan bases, and Ashley, who’s the perfect person to represent teachers, is playing this teacher role,” says Walker. “And I’ve witnessed her moments them, these heartfelt, very vulnerable moments. She’s so honest and authentic with it.”

Williams responds, “Going to Christmas Con and other various areas where we get to know our fans and develop a relationship with them and getting to know what resonates with them, hearing directly from them, it means that I, as a producer, director, and actor for Hallmark, really am enjoying catering to those sensibilities. It’s been such a cool aspect that I never anticipated years ago when I first started.”

Adds Walker, “This is a very unique situation, community and opportunity. They just make me want to bring my A-game every single time.”

After eating, Walker and Willams took some time going over the script for the next day, both together and individually. The make-up artists, freshly recovered from their squats, came over for touch-ups, and everyone was back in action just after 5 p.m.. This scene involved the teams whacking the piñatas in the hopes of breaking one of the three that held a clue to the next location. 

Filming this was especially complicated, as cameras needed to catch the full group as well as the three individual teams from different angles. Several rounds were done without anyone even attempting to actually hit the piñatas, and then, one by one, the pairings were allowed to break them. Each broken piñata was filled with confetti in addition to the few with clues and required a noisy, time-intensive reset to clean up — using leaf blowers — after each take.

With daylight dwindling and the crew hoping to knock out yet another scene before calling it a night, I said my farewells as Williams and Walker prepared to take another swing at getting their clue.

“When they first called me about this movie, they said, ‘It’s The Amazing Race but at Christmas.’ And then they said it would be with Andrew Walker, and I said, ‘Where do I sign up?'” says Williams. “We live two minutes away from each other and we’ve got two boys who are the exact same age and who love each other. I can’t believe that we’ve never done a movie together. So this is such a dream come true.”

“Such a dream,” agrees Walker.

Jingle Bell Run premieres Saturday, Nov. 16 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel.