2 l December
12 - 18, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
Melissa Joan Hart offers
‘Mistletoe in Montana’
BY JAY BOBBIN
Melissa Joan Hart stars in “Mistletoe
in Montana” Friday on Lifetime.
Melissa Joan Hart knows what it’s like to direct other
actors, so she doesn’t mind being directed by one ...
especially if the person is a close friend.
Television’s former “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch”
is guided by “Life Goes On” and “ER” alum Kellie
Martin in “Mistletoe in Montana,” a Lifetime movie
that debuts Friday, Dec. 17. Also an executive producer
of the film along with her mother Paula, Hart plays the
operator of a ranch resort that a single father (Duane
Henry, “NCIS”) visits with his children at holiday
time, possibly resulting in romance. Jamey Sheridan
(“Law & Order: Criminal Intent”) also stars as the
Hart character’s father.
“This movie is actually inspired by my cousin’s true-
life experience going to a dude ranch,” Hart explains.
“She met a wrangler and fell in love, so this is the flip-
flop of that. We were at her wedding in Wyoming last
year, and my mother and I were on horseback ... and
I said, ‘This would make a great movie.’ And she said,
‘Well, do you want to be the wrangler or the guest?’
And I was like, ‘I wanna be the wrangler, ’cause I
wanna really learn how to be a cowgirl.’ ”
Hart drew upon a summer of childhood horse-riding
lessons, but she says that while making the movie on
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location, “I rode as many horses as I could for as long
as I could, and learned about different rein techniques
and different ways to respond to a horse and how
horses respond to you. There were some lessons I went
away for and told my husband, ‘I’ll see you in three
hours, if you’re lucky. I might not make it back.’ ”
Though director Martin starred in 2019’s “Christmas
in Montana,” that actually was filmed in Canada, but
she’s familiar with Montana as her husband’s home
state. After directing a couple of her “Mystery Woman”
capers, she notes her latest turn in that seat was “super-
challenging. There’s not a lot of film crew based in
Montana, and this particular summer because of the
pandemic, a lot of people were like, ‘I want to get away
where there are no people. Let’s go to Montana!’ It was
surprisingly difficult to shoot there this summer.
“That being said,” adds Martin, “I know Montana
so well that I do feel I brought some knowledge about
what it is about. I added shots of snowy owls and elk
and all the things that make Montana Montana. It was
nice to be able to shoot there, even though we had
to acknowledge in the script that it was unseasonably
warm. Which, by the way, does happen. Often, they
don’t get snow there until after Christmas.”
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