Nikki DeLoach Shares Her Personal, Emotional Connection to ‘A Grand Ole Opry Christmas’ and Why She Said Yes Without Seeing a Script

Hallmark is bringing in country music royalty for their upcoming holiday film, “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas,” their first collaboration with the Opry as it celebrates its 100th year. But the cameos — by Pam Tillis, Megan Moroney and Brad Paisley, just to name a few — were only one bullet point on the long list of reasons it’s one of the most touching films of the year.

The power behind it started to hit star Nikki DeLoach, as she was getting her hair and makeup done backstage at the Opry, with Tillis sitting in the chair next to her.

“The music’s on, and she’s just singing to it, and I’m just like, ‘Dear God, keep it together, Nikki. Voice of an angel! This is crazy,’” she told Variety in her dressing room at the Opry. DeLoach has been working with Hallmark Channel for 10 years and reads a lot of scripts. But this, time she didn’t even need to read it to agree to it.

“There was no script yet. I heard ‘Grand Ole Opry,’ and I went, ‘Yes.’ Because it has been such a big part of my life since I was a little girl,” she said.

DeLoach grew up in South Georgia and was extremely close with her father, whom she calls her “north star.” He passed away in 2021 after a battle with dementia.

“Our love language was music. Because of him and my grandmother, I, at 3 years old, knew I wanted to be a performer. And between the two of them, they would get me to my dance lessons and my dad would drive me two hours each way to go to vocal lessons,” she explained. “He would say things like, ‘One day you could be up on that stage,’ and I would be like, ‘Daddy, don’t be ridiculous.’ And one of the places we always talked about going before he got sick was to the Grand Ole Opry together. I had never been because any opportunity that I had had was without him. I always said no, I’m going with my daddy. He got sick. We never got to come together.”

She continued, “So when this movie came along, and I learned that I was going to be coming to the Grand Ole Opry and getting to set foot on that stage and be a part of this, it just felt divine, like a full circle moment that started when I was a kid and happened decades later. We can’t control timing. When the time is right, the time is right. From the moment I’ve been here, my face has hurt from smiling so hard. I can feel my dad everywhere.”

One thing her father always talked about was Vince Gill’s “silky tone.” Then, the first time she came to the Opry before filming began, she was given a tour and tickets to a show. Vince Gill was the performer.

“It’s really a dream come true — not just professionally, but on such a deep personal level,” DeLoach said.

DeLoach plays Gentry, a songwriter who gave up her dream after her father, a country icon, died in a tragic accident. In the film, she travels back in time and gets to spend precious time with her father (Rob Mayes). In one scene between the two, Gentry is overcome with emotion — as was DeLoach. Her mom was in tears watching the scene on set, as were the film’s producers, gathered around the monitors in video village.

“It’s so hard because I don’t use my personal life in roles. I don’t work with substitution; it’s all imagination and building these characters from the ground up because your experiences as a human are very finite, but imagination is infinite. It also allows me to be able to be emotional, not once, but take two and take three and take four,” she said. “But obviously that truth still lives in there. There is no stopping my little girl self from realizing that the magic of getting to see my dad again, going back in time and having one more minute. Then having to say goodbye to him again and choosing between leaving that and going back to the present…. When I read that in the script, I sobbed like a baby. It’s so beautifully written. That’s real. It also felt like an honoring for anyone who’s lost someone.”

DeLoach stars opposite Kris Polaha in the film, who plays Gentry’s lifelong friend and talent manager. The actors had worked together three times before — in “North Shore,” “Awkward,” and “Ringer” — never on a Hallmark project.

“We were backstage and all the artists were preparing to go on stage, practicing in their rooms and doors wide open, so everybody can just hear,” she recalled. “Our jaws are on the ground and Kris just looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘It was just supposed to be this. That’s why we never worked together before because we were waiting for this.’”

The film and its message reminded DeLoach what it is that Hallmark does so well and the reason, in her opinion, it’s only grown in the last decade.

“Our why is very clear to me. This is for our audience — everything that we do is for the fans in mind. We don’t have a network without them, and they are a complete reflection of what we are trying to put out into the world, which is community, love, hope and faith and the knowing that at the end of the day, it’s going to be okay,” she explained. “I think that at the end of the 90 minutes of our movie, that’s what everybody feels. We can go through hard things and then we can also be okay in the end. That is what they’re seeking every time they put that TV on. I am that audience. I have navigated my child’s three heart surgeries. I have watched my dad fight one of the most brutal diseases. My grandfather, too. I have watched them take their last breaths in this world. I know that desire and that yearning to just find some space where you can just believe and hope and hold on to that and know that it’s going to be okay at the end of the day.”

“A Grand Ole Opry Christmas” airs on Saturday, November 29, at 8 p.m. on Hallmark and streams the next day on Hallmark+.