Brennan Elliott Had A Deep & Personal Connection to Hallmark's 'The Gift of Peace'
Brennan Elliott is opening up about his connection to his newest Hallmark movie, The Gift of Peace.
The Hallmark fan favorite actor stars with Nikki DeLoach in the DaySpring production, which will premiere tonight, December 10 at 10 p.m. on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
Here’s a quick summary of the movie: Traci lost her faith after tragedy but begins to find inspiration, hope, and peace with the help of a new community when she joins a grief support group at Christmas.
In a new interview with MediaVillage, Brennan revealed that the movie really connected with him because of his involvement with his own support group as his wife was going through cancer treatments.
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“The story really is about spirituality,” he shared with the outlet. “That isn’t [necessarily] going into a church and singing songs, or going to [a place for] whatever religion you’re in. It’s about heart. It’s about love. It’s about selflessness. It’s about friendship. It’s about caring for others over yourself or helping people through that.”
Brennan adds that he “joined a support group as a caregiver for my wife’s illness, way before this came across my desk. I needed help. Someone said to me, ‘You’re not doing well with your wife’s illness.’ I replied, ‘No, I’m fine. She’s the one dealing with cancer, not me.’ That’s when I first learned about anticipatory grief — your fear of ‘this could happen, and I could lose her.’”
“I wouldn’t have been able to deal with my own emotional struggles through the journey of her illness and my fears without knowing [about] that,” he says. “My online group helped me. By seeing what they’ve gone through, or are going through, you could realize this person isn’t gonna make it, [yet] this person is helping me so selflessly and you end up helping them. In helping others, you find healing. That’s a through-line in this story.”
Brennan also spoke of the cast’s bonds as they all went through processes of grief.
“This was the hardest project I’ve done – ever!” he said. “I would have these moments where the scene would be over, and I didn’t really remember acting. I was so in it because I’m living it at times. People work differently, but I personalize and experience everything. So, I make choices as an actor that are personal, to make something seem real. This one was [easy] to access, but my ego didn’t want to access it. There were times I was like, ‘I don’t want to go there today. Can I just do it and then go home?’ I didn’t want to go to that place.”
He went on, saying that the cast “all decided in the read-through that we were going to hold each other’s hand through this. Nikki was there for me throughout. With [Nikki's] father passing recently, and obviously using imagination and creating these characters, no one held back. We’re going to tell the story as honestly as possible and let the audience decide. It was painful, but there were cathartic moments.”
“There were underpinnings emotionally in this movie that when I first read the script, scared me,” he continued. “I said to Nikki, ‘Do you want to do this?’ She replied, ‘If you can do it, I’ll do it.’ I said, ‘You might want to hold my hand for a couple of days when we’re done working because we’re gonna be going through some personal stuff.’ She was amazing and lovely. It’s the one movie I’ve done in my life where honestly, I felt like the cast, the crew, all of us, it was familial.”
Watch a sneak peek of the movie below: