Jonathan Bennett to Star in Hallmark’s First Gay-Themed Movie
Bennett will star as Danny, a gay ex-jock, in a trilogy following the global romantic escapades of three best friends.
Jonathan Bennett, best known for his role as Aaron Samuels in Mean Girls, says his upcoming trilogy of films, The Groomsmen, will feature the first gay-centric main storyline in a Hallmark Channel movie.
Bennett, 43, told People that he will play the character of Danny in the films, starring alongside Tyler Hynes and B.J. Britt, who have previously starred in other Hallmark Channel films.
“Playing the character of Danny in The Groomsmen — not only are we telling a story of friendship and love, but…telling a story about a wedding,” he said in an interview at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25.
“This is the first time we’ve had a gay wedding on Hallmark as the lead storyline,” Bennett said. “And that’s a huge move for the gay community so they can see themselves represented in these stories.”
According to Hallmark, the movie follows “the lives and romantic relationships of three best friends of different backgrounds, cultures and sexual orientations…as they each find love and wedding bliss in picturesque locations Greece, Italy and Bulgaria.”
Bennett’s character, Danny, is an “ex-jock with a heart of gold,” in comparison to Britt’s Pete, described as a “kind-hearted pediatrician with a penchant for planning,” and Hynes’s role as Jackson, a “stylish and charming social media agent.”
“We got to shoot my character Danny’s storyline in Greece,” Bennett said. “And when you put me, Tyler Hynes and B.J. Britt in Santorini, jumping off cliffs, it’s literally like paradise, and a dream come true because we got to film a gay love story in Santorini for Hallmark Channel.
“It’s all the things that we love. We love destinations, we love friendship, we love romance, and we love Greece,” he continued. “So, like all those things combined for my movie, it blew it out of the water.”
Bennett has previously played leading and supporting roles as straight characters in Hallmark films, and had a secondary storyline as a gay brother with a romantic partner in the Hallmark movie The Christmas House (which, at the time, was billed as the channel’s first “gay” film, despite the primary storyline being about the straight brother’s romantic adventures).
The Groomsmen, however, appears to be the first movie in the franchise to feature a gay lead storyline or at least one of multiple storylines that each hold equal weight or equal importance within the film trilogy.
The idea that the Hallmark Channel would even allow a gay storyline was unthinkable a few years ago.
In 2019, the channel infamously yanked an ad depicting a lesbian wedding from the air at the behest of social conservatives and threats of boycotting the channel, only to later reverse course.
Right-wing activist groups also circulated petitions calling on the channel to promise to keep identifiable LGBTQ characters out of Hallmark films, even in supporting or minor roles.
The following year, Bill Abbott, the then-CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, expressed an openness to having LGBTQ characters in film and even depicting same-sex relationships, in response to criticism from some viewers about the lack of diversity — both in terms of race, religious minorities, and non-traditional families — in casting and storyline development.
Unfortunately, the decision to expand the pool of actors and write more diverse characters into movies led some of the channel’s more politically conservative stars, and Abbott himself, to jump ship to the Great American Family channel, which has billed itself as a refuge for conservative viewers who wish to see storylines on screen that promote the values of (preferably Christian) faith and support for traditional family structures.
Bennett — who will also host Hallmark’s first reality competition series, Finding Mr. Christmas, which will premiere later this year — said in an Instagram post earlier this month that he’s been honored “to make stories that mean something.”
“I hope when you see these stories you find a part of them that you identify with and they mean something to you,” he wrote. “Because THAT is our why. Why we do what we do. And sure, we have a little fun in the process.”
The Groomsmen movies will debut on Hallmark+ this fall.
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