After five years out of the spotlight, former teen sensation Daniella Monet decided she was ready to act again — but she had very specific guidelines for her comeback. During a Zach Sang podcast interview that dropped on July 10, 2026, Monet revealed what she envisioned for herself as she returned to Hollywood and how those dreams are now coming true.
From a new Christmas movie with one of Hallmark’s most beloved hunks to starring in Netflix’s upcoming spinoff of “Victorious,” the Nickelodeon sitcom she co-starred in with Victoria Justice and Ariana Grande from 2010 to 2013, Monet is on a roll, doing exactly what she hoped for.
Daniella Monet Checked In With Lacey Chabert Before Joining Hallmark
During Monet’s podcast interview, Sangs asked how she got back into acting after taking a long hiatus to start a family. She and her husband, Andrew Gardner, welcomed son Gio James in September 2019 and daughter Ivry Monet in February 2021.
Thinking back on her decision to start acting again, Monet shared the conversation she had with a talent manager while plotting her next steps several years ago.
“I was like, ‘Okay, let me get this very clear,'” Monet recalled saying. “‘Like, I don’t want to be super famous. I know it’s weird, it’s not my thing. I really love family-friendly content, so anything where it’s, like, ‘Breaking Bad’ or “Euphoria’ or all these other shows that are huge hits, that’s not for me. Like, I’m your Hallmark girly. I’m your middle of America girl next door. I want my kids to be able to watch whatever I do. That’s kind of the niche.”
Monet said her agent set up a meeting with Hallmark, and that she also reached out personally to Hallmark Christmas queen Lacey Chabert for some insights.
“I watched Lacey Chabert come up on Hallmark,” Monet said, “and she … was one person I confided with at one point. I was like, ‘I want to go back to work. I know you have a daughter. How are you balancing it all?’ And she gave me the confidence that, like, Hallmark is really a supportive spot for what (I was) looking to do. So I was like, ‘That feels right to me.'”
Monet also mentioned her conversation with Chabert on the “Good Guys Podcast” with Josh Peck and Ben Soffer in late June, describing working for Hallmark as “a dream of mine” and noting that if she could “do 10% of what Lacey Chabert’s doing right now, I’d be the luckiest girl in the world.”
Daniella Monet Has Been Filming New Hallmark Christmas Movie
Monet first landed supporting roles in two Hallmark movies — 2024’s “Holiday Crashers” and 2025’s “Sisterhood, Inc.” On the “Good Guys Podcast,” she told Peck how great filming her first Hallmark movie with Lyndsy Fonseca was.
“That was my first (Hallmark movie), that was the first time I’d ever been away from the kids,” she said. “She was perfect, cuz she’s a mom, so that helped a lot.”
Next up, it looks like Monet will star in her own Christmas movie, alongside beloved “When Calls The Heart” leading man Kevin McGarry. The two were spotted filming in a photo tweeted on July 6 by former Hamilton Observer reporter Dan Dundas, who said their movie is titled “The Christmas Eve Feast.”
#HamOnt Actors Daniella Monet and Kevin McGarry shot a scene for the Hallmark film ‘The Christmas Eve Feast’ in downtown Dundas today. The film will shoot in the Hamilton area for three weeks @TheSpec @FilmingTO-em pic.twitter.com/X8A6xpnuME
— dan nolan (@dandundas) July 6, 2026
Industry trades, including Ontario Creates, reported that filming on the movie started in Hamilton, Ontario, on June 22, and was slated to wrap on July 13. That timing lines up with what Monet told Peck on his podcast, revealing that she was about to leave for a month-long Hallmark shoot.
Monet didn’t have to spend the whole time away from family, though. On July 6, she shared on Instagram that her husband and kids joined her for part of the time, posting family photos taken at Niagara Falls, about an hour’s drive from Hamilton, and pics of her kids in her set trailer.
She captioned the series of photos, “when they come and visit 🤍” and added, “being away for work is still new for us as a family, but we’re making it all work, and with that comes fun adventures in new places together.”
Daniella Monet Learned About the ‘Victorious’ Spinoff While Filming With Hallmark
Monet told Sang on his podcast that back when she was on the Vancouver set of “Holiday Crashers,” she received a call from Jake Farrow, the former executive producer of “Victorious.” Monet made a name for herself on the Nickelodeon show as Trina Vega.
Farrow said he’d been brainstorming a new spinoff starring her character and wondered what she thought. On the podcast, she said she told Farrow, “I love the idea of this, but I just started with Hallmark, and I’m hoping there’s, like, runway here, but keep me in the loop.”
“So that was the initial seed,” she told Sang, and eventually Farrow’s idea became reality as an upcoming series called “Hollywood Arts,” named after the high school in “Victorious.” In the spinoff, Trina Vega is now a substitute teacher who still dreams of hitting the big time.
Though a premiere date has not been announced, Netflix has said it will debut in 2026 and later air on Nickelodeon.
