With nearly 20 Hallmark Channel movies and series to her name, including her new holiday movie “The Christmas Cup,” actress Rhiannon Fish is a bonified Hallmark star. But the cute-as-a-button actress insists she didn’t feel like it heading into the 2025 Hallmark Christmas Experience, which was — shockingly — her first official Hallmark event.
“I was terrified,” Fish admitted to EntertainmentNow after the three-day weekend she spent in Kansas City with 20,000 fans and a squad of 11 top Hallmark stars, including Tyler Hynes (her co-star in “A Picture of Her”), Andrew Walker, Kimberley Sustad, Paul Campbell, and Jonathan Bennett.
Spoiler alert: the weekend went wonderfully and Fish loved (almost) every minute, but her own fandom for those she shared the stage with and her unnecessary insecurity about whether she belonged was too sweet not to share.
Rhiannon Fish Says She & Robert Buckley Were Initially Very Nervous for Weekend
EntertainmentNowArriving at the shimmering Crown Plaza, where Hallmark’s been headquartered for over 100 years, and the Westin Hotel, full of festive fans everywhere she turned, Fish said it was “overwhelming” and felt like “Disneyland — but Hallmark Disneyland.”
“I have never been to such a magical place,” she marveled. “It almost feels indescribable.”
Fish admitted that she and “Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper!” star Robert Buckley, who was also attending his first Hallmark event, quietly commiserated about how “nervous and intimidated” they felt, knowing how popular some of the other stars were with fans and “to share a stage with people that I do very genuinely look up to.”
“There’s this element of (figuring) it would be like, ‘Oh, you guys are here to see Tyler, fair enough. I get it!’ But then we felt not only so welcomed by the other cast members that were there, but by the audience, as well. It was, it was just indescribable!”
“Afterwards,” Fish continued, “I was worried that I would have, like, a come down — that I would feel sad afterwards. But I had quite the opposite feeling. Like, I just felt so genuinely fulfilled by the goodness that existed at the experience that afterwards, I feel like I carried it with me.”
Rhiannon Fish Was in Awe of Watching Fellow Stars, Including Kimberley Sustad & Tyler Hynes
Fish said she was particularly nervous during her first panel discussion, but warmed up quickly as she realized how kind and down-to-earth everyone was. In one hilarious improv skit based on the Nativity story (seen above), she wound up playing the baby Jesus, lifted in the air by Hynes and Bennett.
But before she realized how easily she’d blend in, Fish told EntertainmentNow she was nervous to meet and hang out with stars she’s looked up to for a long time.
“I was so nervous to meet Kimberley,” she said of Sustad. “She is just, like, this tall goddess of a woman who is so brilliant, so talented — I was just so nervous — and then, instantly, she will put you at ease, as does every person there.”
The actress and “Three Wise Men” screenwriter was “amazing” to watch, Fish said, explaining, “She carries herself with so much confidence, but then with no ego. I would watch people tell her how much her work means to them, and she would listen in such a genuine, beautiful way. She’s the real deal. So I feel very excited for anybody that admires her in any capacity, because you’re admiring, like, a very special person.”
Rhiannon Fish Says She Loves How Humble & Kind the Hallmark Hunks Are, Too
EntertainmentNowFish also noted how great it was to realize that the Hallmark hunks she spent time with at the Hallmark Christmas Experience were as wonderful offscreen as they are onscreen.
Though she knows Hynes from filming their 2023 movie together, she said he, too, was fascinating to observe, noting that “with every fan that would come up for the group photo op, he would immediately go to them and then give them a hug or handshake, whatever they were comfortable with, introduce himself, and then get to know their name as well. Like, just instantly putting everybody at ease.”
Fish told EntertainmentNow she was also so impressed with Walker, “He was so present for the convention, but then I asked him, ‘You know, are you going to stick around a little bit afterwards? What are your plans?’ He was like, ‘No, I can’t wait to get home to my family.'”
“And they are all like that,” Fish continued. “You just see all these men — Rob is another one, the way he lights up when he talks about his babies and his wife — and they’re just good people, really good family men that are at that network. It’s so cool.”
HallmarkFish said the same of her “The Christmas Cup” co-star Ben Rosenbaum, who recently announced with his wife, Hallmark’s Erin Krakow, that they’re expecting their first child.
“I’m just so thrilled for them, it’s just the most wonderful thing,” she said. “I think he’ll be a wonderful dad because truly, he’s a really good person. And at the end of the day, I think that’s the most important thing in being any kind of parent is to just have a good heart. And Ben absolutely has one.”
The final weekend of the Hallmark Christmas Experience takes place in Kansas City from December 19-21.
