Hallmark’s holy trinity of hunks are back and, boy, are they having some growing pains.
In this sparkling sequel to 2022’s top-rated cable movie, Three Wiser Men and a Boy picks up five years after Three Wise Men and a Baby saw the Brenner brothers—firefighter Luke (Andrew Walker), anxious dog-therapist Stephan (Paul Campbell) and video-game developer Taylor (Tyler Hynes) uniting to care (and dance) for a baby named Thomas that was left at Luke’s station right before Christmas, the new gem finds the siblings older, but maybe not as wise as the title would imply.
“We’ve all moved into different places in our lives,” previews Campbell, who co-wrote both films with fellow Hallmark fave Kimberley Sustad. “We’re five years later, the baby’s a boy, he’s in first grade now, he’s six years old.”
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As for the adults in the room, “Stefan has now written a book,” Campbell continues. “He has convinced himself and he’s trying to convince the world that he has done away with his mental-health struggles and that he’s a new man, confident. And we quickly discovered that none of that is true and he will soon have to journey through it all again.” However, the hilarious actor adds, “He’s still attractive…he’s more attractive and he’s taller.”
Sitting with his costars, Campbell is clearly at ease with both his character’s arc and the company he keeps, even though he and Sustad have cooked up tricky and topical new dramas for both Walker and Hynes, as well.
Walker’s former ladies-man Luke, now domesticated with Thomas and his mom, is grappling with stability. “On paper, it looks like everything is going great, but really you see that he’s struggling with who he is and he’s losing these identifiers for him,” explains the actor, who also has Jingle Bell Run on the scheduled this season. “He was the main guy at the fire station. He was the young guy that could do the heavy lifting. He lived a single life…now he’s a dad and that’s the most important thing to him,” offers Walker. “[But] five years have flown by and he’s lost track of who he is.”
And Taylor? “He seems to be the worst of them,” laughs Hynes. “He seems to be trying his hardest.” Faced with a dead-end in his startup, the perpetually single toothpick addict “is reaching for something big [in his career] and he can’t get there but he’s not giving up.” Nor is he putting up much fight when the chance arises for the brothers to move back in with their widowed mom (the always wonderful Margaret Colin) for the holidays. In fact, he’s the one who suggests it, despite all three of the guys bristling at her unexpected new romance with the local pastor. As Campbell puts it, “the place where they’re safest becomes unsafe when mom’s new boyfriend shows up and triggers all of these questions about identity and who are we in this world and what’s our purpose and what’s our place.”
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The trio soon gets a reminder of where they stand and what matters most after a classic Brenner mishap lands them a gig overseeing the Christmas pageant at Thomas’s (Miles Marthaller) school. Before long, they’re pulling out the old elf tights and hash out some even older gripes, all while delivering the same kind of on-screen chemistry and comedy that made Baby such a smash. Added bonus: getting to let loose with their littlest scene partners.
“There was one scene that didn’t make this cut,” reveals Walker. “We just let the kids wrap us up in wrapping paper, and it was actually Tyler’s idea. He’s like, ‘Kids go crazy on us and then keep the cameras going.’ We only had three to four minutes left that we could shoot in the day.”
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“We’re supposed to be losing control of the kids in the scene and it wasn’t really reading,” adds Campbell. Until, Hynes jumps in, “I gave them weapons.”
“And then they’re hitting us and wrapping us and tying us up,” Campbell recalls. “And it was absolute chaos…the kids went ham.”
Related‘Three Wiser Men & a Boy’ First Look: See the Brenner Bros Dance Again
Given how things turn out at the end of the film (no spoilers!), could there be a potential third installment in the works? Only if it’s on the audience’s wish list. “We will be listening and we will take that into whatever future fun that might occur,” admits Hynes. “There’s no shortage of fun that we have on set and we love working together.”
Wise answer.
Three Wiser Men and a Boy, Movie Premiere, Saturday, November 23, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel
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