A Broadway husband-and-wife team lead the cast of Hallmark Movies and Mysteries latest whodunit, To Catch a Spy, debuting Sunday, June 20, at 8/7c.
Colin Donnell, who starred as Billy Crocker in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, and Patti Murin, who played Princess Anna in the stage version of Frozen, join TV and film veteran Nathalie Kelley in the thriller, which was filmed on location in the Republic of Malta.
Kelley plays travel writer Chloe, who is covering the reopening of the grand Optima Hotel for the magazine Destination Traveler. But her simple assignment turns treacherous when she overhears an argument on her first night in the hotel, and then sees a woman fall past her window. By the time she can alert the staff, the body has disappeared.
Chloe works with FBI agent Aaron Maxwell (played by Donnell), and her co-worker Sara (played by Murin), to solve the case.
A world away
This is the network’s second movie filmed in Malta, an island nation in the Mediterranean, and one of many recent Hallmark productions shot outside of North America. Hearts Down Under, which premiered in April, was filmed on location in Australia. Her Pen Pal, which premieres Saturday, June 19 on the Hallmark Channel at 9/8c, was shot in Paris.
All three stars of To Catch a Spy talked about the thrill of visiting Malta in a preview interview for Hallmark.
“Just being here surrounded by so much history is really a dream come true for me,” said Kelley, who was born in Peru and raised in Australia.
For Donnell, the biggest thrill was filming in the country’s famed Upper Barrakka Gardens and watching the cannon salute on the battery. Though the firing of the cannons is ceremonial these days, in centuries past the twice-daily salute was made so ships in the Grand Harbor below could calibrate their clocks.
“The vista that you get to look out over is just stunning,” he said.
Together again
To Catch a Spy is the second Hallmark project that Donnell and Murin have worked on together. In 2020, they co-starred in the romantic comedy Love on Iceland. Despite being a couple in real life, they weren’t cast as each other’s love interests in either film. In To Catch a Spy, they only got to appear in one scene together.
“We love working opposite each other but honestly, it’s just nice to be able to travel together,” Donnell said.
To Catch a Spy will premiere on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries on Sunday, June 20 at 8/7c.