00:00It's time to make sure that we're telling stories for everyone because Christmas is
00:05for everyone."
00:06Jonathan Bennett is making the holidays a whole lot hotter.
00:10Dubbing himself the gay king of Christmas, the Mean Girls star has made a mark on the
00:14festive season by commandeering Hallmark Channel through past projects like the Christmas House
00:19franchise, executive producing and starring in The Holiday Sitter, Hallmark's first
00:24Christmas romantic comedy that focuses on a queer couple, and so much more.
00:28Bennett sat down with The Hollywood Reporter about his acclaimed work within the network
00:31for the holidays, bringing LGBTQ plus visibility to the forefront of television, and so much
00:37more.
00:38I reinvented the holidays at Hallmark as well, so it's kind of like we both won."
00:43The actor is currently gearing up for his next big collaboration with Hallmark, Finding
00:47Mr. Christmas.
00:48Bennett is helping Hallmark find their next leading man, hosting the reality competition
00:53series where 10 guys will compete in a series of challenges, testing their acting skills
00:58and festive spirit.
00:59The winner will land a leading role in an upcoming Hallmark Channel holiday movie and
01:03earn the title of Mr. Christmas.
01:05It is the first ever unscripted reality competition series for Hallmark.
01:11We dissected Hallmark Christmas movies and we said, what are the tropes that make a Hallmark
01:17Christmas movie?
01:19Well, you have the meet cue, you have the ice skating scene, you have the apology, you
01:26have a kiss under a mistletoe.
01:27You have all these different things.
01:30We took all those tropes and made a challenge and figured out a way to gamify each of those
01:36tropes and put them through the challenges.
01:38As for the criteria to be a Christmas hunk, well, they've got to have a good sense of
01:43humor.
01:44They've got to be witty.
01:45They've got to be funny.
01:46They've got to have a kindness about them that's genuine.
01:50And of course, they've got to look good in a Christmas sweater.
01:53With Hallmark being known for their holiday tropes, Bennett also shared his favorite Christmas
01:58tropes.
01:59Bring your partner home for the holidays to your eccentric family, for sure.
02:02There's no family that isn't dysfunctional.
02:04Every family is dysfunctional in some level.
02:06That's what families are.
02:08Families are messy.
02:09While it seems like Bennett was born to share his festive spirit, the actor said that it
02:13wasn't always the case.
02:14Being a gay kid in Ohio, it was the holidays, going home for the holidays after living in
02:21the big city.
02:22And I moved to New York and was able to be my full self.
02:27And then I would go home for the holidays and still wasn't completely out with everyone
02:32in the town.
02:34Everything was like, the holidays always can be crunchy for a lot of people, right?
02:38There's a lot of different reasons why the holidays can be crunchy sometimes.
02:41That's why the actor, who received back-to-back GLAAD Media Award nominations for his prior
02:45holiday films for the network, made it his mission to bring more representation to the
02:50screen.
02:51There's nothing more powerful than seeing your life reflected in a scene in a movie.
02:59I had played a whole bunch of characters on Hallmark that were straight, which was wonderful.
03:04But there came a time where it was like, it's time to make sure that we're telling stories
03:10for everyone because Christmas is for everyone.
03:13Elsewhere, the actor touched on another holiday, one he may be most known for, October 3rd.
03:18No matter where you go, there will always be a person at a Starbucks that will write
03:25your name on the cup, Aaron Samuels, 100%.
03:30No matter what city you're in, what town, when you tell them your name, they're like,
03:33uh-huh.
03:34And they write Aaron Samuels on the cup.
03:35I'm paying attention to Mean Girls less this year on October 3rd, but I'm still paying
03:39attention to October 3rd, just in a different way.
03:42But Mean Girls is the reason that I'm able to do that.
03:44So it's almost like a passing of a baton or like a salute.
03:49You know what I mean?
03:50It's like, there's still the respect there and the love for the movie and the love for
03:54the fans and the love for what it gave me as a career.
03:5710 years out of your high school reunion, you still talk about high school.
04:0020 year high school reunion, you're not talking about what happened in high school as much
04:05because other exciting things have happened to your life.
04:08Finding Mr. Christmas premieres October 31st on Hallmark+.
04:12For the latest entertainment news and updates, keep watching The Hollywood Reporter News.
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