“Quick, quick, slow, slow” may be the right moves on the dance floor, but in the new Hallmark original Texas Two-Step, leads Brendan Penny and Heather Hemmens make for the perfect combo. Packing enough charm to fill a 10-gallon hat, the alarmingly charismatic Chesapeake Shores vet stars as Luke, a cowboy who is reunited with former bestie Olivia (a luminous Hemmens) when she returns to their Texas town after years apart. “Not only were [these characters] childhood friends, but I’m going to shock you here: [They] were also childhood sweethearts. I know you didn’t see that coming!” says Penny, an alum of over 20 Hallmark flicks, with a laugh.
Back home to help her aunt’s struggling bar, Olivia is soon reminded of her love of line dancing — and Luke — but unresolved heartbreak has them both skittish to take another spin. “She left Luke, and he kind of blew [things] up after that, so there was no coming back,” says Penny. “He cut her off, but he also started dating people pretty quick and it just made it seem that he was definitely over it and unavailable when the truth is anything but that.”
Once their paths cross again, the sparks are undeniable, leading to the classic Hallmark woofest. Given the Lone Star locale, that meant both saddling up and brushing up his equine chops.
Eike Schroter/Hallmark Media
“Heather, she did Roswell where she was riding horses and she’s done all that sort of farm life thing,” he explains. “I shot a movie, oh man, I don’t even know, maybe like 12 years ago or something called The Virginian with Ron Perlman and Trace Adkins and that was the first time that I ever had to ride a horse, so I kind of learned on that job and that was my experience.”
And before you wonder, no, he didn’t tell the producers he knew how to ride just to book the role. “I wasn’t one of those lying actors, I told them I had no idea,” Penny confesses. “I played a ‘New York Dandy’ is what he was described as, because it was a period piece, who then turned into a cowboy. So, I was allowed to have no skill at first.”
Other than that, however, the hilarious heartbreaker teases that the most cowboy thing about him is “only for certain people who close their eyes and dream big.”
And while we’d never spoil whether they get back together (do they ever not?!), we can confirm that the actors have legitimately stepped up. “I am sure you’re aware of this, but your readers may not be: The shooting schedule for a Hallmark movie is really tight. You’re normally doing 14-hour days and it’s a 15-day schedule and there’s not a lot of room for rehearsals and stuff like that,” Penny reveals. “[But] we had three full days of rehearsals for the dance sequences. Our director Eva Tavares has done a lot of music videos, and she’s young and hip and cool, so she taught [me] how to dance properly and not look like a total dork. The dances and the way they’re shot look fantastic. They’re a pretty amazing part of the movie.”
As for his dancer partner, Penny can’t say enough about Hemmens, whom he’d gotten to know previously on one of the Hallmark cruises. “We had already known each other enough that as soon as we hit the floor, it was really, really good,” he raves. “And she is the best by the way. She is so fun. We still talk all the time. She’s awesome.”
Texas Two-Step, Movie Premiere, Saturday, June 13, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel