Chyler Leigh is a familiar face on television thanks to her long runs in shows like Supergirl and Grey’s Anatomy, and now Hallmark has given her the opportunity to play a very different kind of character. The Way Home is a Hallmark original series centered on three generations of women under one roof for the first time ever in the Landry family. As if that wasn’t enough, time travel will even be involved! Ahead of the premiere, Leigh spoke with CinemaBlend about the show and making the relationships believable.
The actress plays Kat Landry, who has been estranged from her mother Del (played by Hallmark veteran Andie MacDowell) for more than two decades. This means that Kat’s teenage daughter Alice (played by Sadie Laflamme-Snow) has never met her grandmother and doesn’t quite know the family history behind what she’s getting into when the three women come together. Chyler Leigh is best known for playing Dr. Lexie Grey’s Anatomy and sisterly superhero Alex Danvers on Supergirl, but The Way Home means playing a mom.
Leigh shared what her experience has been like playing a mother on a show with such a strong focus on three generations of women:
It's funny, because I think it really is one of the only experiences that I've had playing a mom, and I've been a mom for so long in my life. I have two girls, 13 and 16, and my son is 19. So I have a daughter that is Alice's age, and it's just been really cool to kind of draw upon my own experiences, just from different things going on in my own personal life, and be able to use that has kind of built up a bit of that wellspring to draw upon so that I can be a bit more believable to go through the motions of a broken relationship between mother and daughter, and how hard that can be and zeal to try to make it better, but you have no idea how to do it.
Chyler Leigh has been a mom for nearly two decades, including to two teenage girls, so she has plenty of real-life experience to apply to making the Kat/Alice relationship feel extremely believable. Of course, the actress hasn’t had to face the same kinds of challenges in her real life as Kat will in The Way Home. Although viewers will have to tune in to learn about the mysteries of the Landry family, an early Hallmark preview for the show revealed that Alice will travel in time back to the ‘90s and interact with younger versions of her family members who have no idea who she is.
Could the time travel give Alice a new perspective on her mother and grandmother to help heal the rift in the family, or is it too late for Kat and Del? Only time will tell on that front, but the wait for the new show is almost over. The Way Home premieres on Sunday, February 15 at 9 p.m. ET on Hallmark in the 2023 TV schedule as Chyler Leigh’s first series regular role since the end of Supergirl in 2021. The show received an order for a ten-episode first season.
The Way Home was first announced in June of 2022 as the first new TV drama ordered by Hallmark in more than five years. At the time, only Andie MacDowell was attached as a star. Chyler Leigh was announced to play MacDowell’s character’s daughter in August 2022. Both she and MacDowell serve as executive producers as well as stars on the new project. With the wait to see the show winding down, be sure to plan ahead for the premiere on February 15!
