When Hallmark Channel fans tune in for the network’s newest rom-com on August 30, 2025, they’ll get to see longtime fan-favorites Michael Rady and Emilie Ullerup unite onscreen for “Catch of the Day.”
But they weren’t the only stars involved in bringing the movie to life. The script was written by Food Network star Katie Lee Biegel, with help from NBC “Dateline” correspondent Andrea Canning, who often moonlights as a Hallmark screenwriter.
Katie Lee Biegel Took an NYU Screenwriting Class Before Tackling ‘Catch of the Day’
Biegel, one of the stars of Food Network’s long-running series “The Kitchen,” has written numerous best-selling cookbooks and the novel “Groundswell,” which became a 2022 Hallmark movie starring Lacey Chabert.
That experience made Biegel curious about writing Hallmark movies, she told Swooon, so she set her sights on learning how to do it, starting with a screenwriting class at NYU. She said she also read a screenwriting book and “learned the ropes” by working with Canning.
Screenwriters don’t always get to be on-set to see their movies come to life, but Biegel makes a cameo in “Catch of the Day” playing “a food blogger that’s maybe not always the nicest,” she told NY1’s Spectrum News.
Katie Lee Spiegel Was Fascinated by How the Actors Delivered the Lines She Wrote
While filming, Biegel was fascinated watching her script come to life, she told Swooon, explaining, “I wrote the dialogue, but then to watch actors interpret it, and to maybe say it differently than I had thought it, and I really liked their take on it. It’s just fun to see someone else’s creative spin.”
Surprisingly, Biegel told New York Live, “Even though I wrote the dialogue, it was challenging to memorize it and to go off of somebody else, and know when to say my lines … It was different, but it was so fun.”
In “Catch of the Day,” according to Hallmark’s synopsis, Ullerup plays Sophie — “a rising culinary star on the verge of becoming executive chef at a high-end Manhattan restaurant. But when her sister Abigail calls with news that their beloved family seafood spot in Montauk is floundering, Sophie returns home to help.”
In June, Hallmark Media VP of Development Laura Gaines told TV Insider, “This all started with Katie Lee’s vision of exploring a woman who is pulled between two culinary worlds and ultimately falls in love with her family’s legacy, leaving the fine dining world behind to reconnect to her roots.”
Katie Lee Biegel Says Hallmark’s Emilie Ullerup & Michael Rady Have ‘Amazing Chemistry’
Biegel told TV Insider she’s excited for Hallmark fans to see the “amazing chemistry” between Ullerup and Rady, who plays Sophie’s old crush, Cam.
“I think that people are going to watch it and feel that nostalgic feeling of summer love when you were young,” Biegel told the outlet.
Biegel, who lives in the Hamptons, told Swooon that she was inspired by the many ways Montauk, a quaint Long Island town, has changed over the last two decades.
“I spend a lot of time on the east end of Long Island, and I’ve been there over 20 years now, and I’ve really watched Montauk change,” she told the outlet. “It went from being this small, commercial fishing village, (that’s) quiet to now the cool place where people are going and getting bottle service and dancing on tables.”
“It’s changed quite a bit,” Biegel continued, “and I wanted to write about the challenges of small businesses, especially in tourist towns, and family dynamics within a family business. And, ultimately, love. I mean, this is Hallmark, and we love a love story.”
“Catch of the Day” premieres on August 30 at 8 pm. Eastern time.
