It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Or rather, it’s almost the most wonderful time of the year, that time when Hallmark ramps up its slate of original productions. This year we’re getting two from longtime staple Alison Sweeney, and she recently shared some cool BTS details about the making of her latest Hannah Swensen murder mystery – including how her real-life husband (not to be confused with onscreen romantic lead Victor Webster) gets involved in the productions.
Sweeney is a network gem, and we love talking to her about her varying projects, including the upcoming Hallmark movie A Sprinkle of Deceit and her soon-to-air Christmas movie This Time Each Year. We were able to talk about the process of putting together one of the cabler’s most popular murder mystery series with the actress, but to be honest, I was very surprised about a few of the details she imparted.
I Had No Idea That These Murder Mysteries Started With Writing The Murder, But It Makes Sense
Listen, when I am writing I am always thinking about an opening scene first, but when it comes to murder mysteries, Alison Sweeney revealed it always starts with the actual murder – whether or not the murder is the opening scene in what ultimately becomes the TV movie. Once they’ve figured out who gets killed and how they “work backward” and create a whole story around it with clues peppered in and more.
It actually sounds like a really cool process, as Ms. Sweeney, who wrote Hannah Swensen: One Bad Apple, put it to CinemaBlend:
So we start with the murder and then work backward, like, ‘OK, why did this person get killed? How was it done? Why did he or she do it?’ And then I work backward with the clues of like, ‘OK so then if you didn't plan it out, here are some things that you wouldn't have thought to do in advance that you're going to have to clean up after the fact, or maybe you did plan it out. And so that's why this crime scene is so clean. There's no evidence, you know? And then what does that mean?’
Red herrings, real clues, organic deductions and more are only created after the murder has been fully planned out. It honestly makes sense. You can’t pepper in clues if you don’t already know the who, what, when, where and why someone has been murdered, but if this isn’t something you do on the regular (which it’s not for me obviously) you might have no idea where these projects start out. I certainly didn’t think it through.
Alison Sweeney Takes Advice From Her Former Law Enforcement Husband
Even more sweetly, however, Ms. Sweeney shared a detail about creating the Hannah Swensen Mysteries movies that I had no idea about but will stick with me as I watch moving forward. She’s a big Dateline fan (who isn’t?) but she says she and the cast and crew actually use her former law enforcement husband to make sure the details they are creating in their stories pan out.
I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, and I watch a lot of Dateline, and so I spent a lot of time trying to really go through the process like the investigators do. And then, inevitably, because, you know, my husband was in law enforcement, I have to call him from set and be like, ‘OK, so if this was the crime scene, what would you say?’ And he's like, ‘What? Like, Ali, I need more than that.’ So, you know, he does offer and he does give me technical advice.
Celebrity marriages are often cute, but I think it's particularly adorable how the two are able to work together on projects, even though she's an actress and he's former law enforcement.
As a bit of backstory, Alison Sweeney is married to David Sanov, and they wed way back in 2000. Sanov is a former California Highway Patrolman, and they began dating in their twenties after meeting via their parents. Now, they've been together for more than twenty years and even have two kids together. Plus it sounds like they work together well in other forums as well.
I'd say Sanov should pop up in a Hannah Swensen movie, but he actually already did a similar cameo once when Sweeney was on Days of Our Lives. Could it be time for something as equally adorable again? I'm just saying, Sweeney's year might already be planned out, but there's always the 2025 TV schedule to look forward to. We'll keep you posted if more Hannah Swensen mysteries get announced -- whatever the timeline.
