Tyler Hynes Says He and His“ Three Wiser Men ”Costars Have to Be 'Very Diligent' About How They Handle DMs (Exclusive)
The Hallmark star's 'Three Wiser Men and a Boy' costars Paul Campbell and Andrew Walker also told PEOPLE what they were surprised to learn about Hynes
Tyler Hynes, Paul Campbell and Andrew Walker will star in Three Wiser Men and a Boy, a sequel to 2022's Three Wise Men and a Baby
Campbell tells PEOPLE he and his costars "definitely bring the silliness" in Three Wiser Men and a Boy
Walker says Campbell and Hynes remind him "that we can all be a little bit better every day"
A Hallmark meet cute may typically look like a run-in at a Christmas tree farm, mixed-up coffee orders at a local café or falling for the stranger with whom you shared a cab. But offscreen, Hallmark fans have tried to shoot their shot in the DMs with the network’s stars.
“We have to be careful, to be quite honest,” Tyler Hynes tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with his Three Wiser Men and a Boy costars Paul Campbell and Andrew Walker. “The internet's a little bit wild in terms of fake accounts and scammers, and the people that come to this network are so lovely and vulnerable that come to this network. So, we do have to be very diligent and careful with how we engage with things to keep our audience safe in terms of being taken advantage of.”
Campbell, 45, says the messages he receives from fans “are all so lovely.”
“They're always along the lines of, ‘I love this movie for this reason’ or ‘I've been going through this and I found this in the movie that brought me comfort,’” the father of 8-year-old son Kingston says. “It's just 100s and 100s of people supporting what we do. It's pretty beautiful.
Hynes, 38, says he, Campbell and Walker, 45, have a group chat going, where “our DMs are an absolute mess.”
Campbell agrees, “It's a disaster,” Campbell agrees.
Read on for a peek into the banter between the stars of Three Wiser Men and a Boy.
Hallmark has a reputation for being a network for women, but with male-led movies like Three Wise Men and a Baby and The Groomsmen, are you seeing a shift?
TYLER HYNES: Yeah, there's a balance to it all that I think is a really lovely one. I love that this network is very female-focused. I always have. Groomsmen, there is many, many diverse people in the cast that the story's really being told through them and for them. And in Wise Men, it's really about our mother. What these movies do best is when it explores new themes that maybe haven't been done, and I think Wise Men does that incredibly well.
ANDREW WALKER: I think people want variety. The variety in the stories that Hallmark is telling, it's amazing now. There's something for everybody. The majority of the viewers on this network are female. So we were surprised at the reaction that people had with the first Three Wise Men, and we're just glad to do it again.
PAUL CAMPBELL: Yeah, I think if you're able to tell stories that are fun and engaging regardless of who's piloting the ship, we will come back for more. I think we found something really great, really fun with the first one. Hopefully, we can live up to that. We definitely bring the silliness.
What's been your most memorable or craziest fan interaction over the years?
CAMPBELL: I met a woman at Christmas Con in New Jersey last year, and her sister had been in the hospital for about a year. She'd been an otherwise very healthy woman in her early 50s, and she'd been out running one day and suddenly just sort of lost all function. Her nervous system just shut down. She'd been in the hospital. And this woman said, “My sister would've given anything to be here,” but for the past year, she's had, the first Hallmark movie I ever did, Window Wonderland on repeat in the hospital. And every time she wakes up, it's the one thing that brings her comfort is watching this movie. I was just blown away. It's a testament to the comfort that these movies bring to people. There's this eternal positivity and eternal hope in these movies, and you see that reflected back to you by the fans across the board. It's pretty overwhelming sometimes.
ANDREW WALKER: Every Christmas Con there's women, men, cancer remission, widowed. A woman came to my table with her three sisters and their mom and the mother said she made it to her 40th birthday. They took her out of hospice to come see me. And three years later, that same woman came back and actually had a heart transplant and made it through and she was completely transformed. These are stories that we get all the time.
HYNES: I had somebody slide their number in my pocket yesterday.
CAMPBELL: That was me.
HYNES: Oh, that was you?
CAMPBELL: Yeah, but I'm a huge fan.
These movies are a comfort to a lot of viewers—what’s your version of a Hallmark movie, the thing that you seek comfort in in each of your lives?
WALKER: I read the DMs that they send me.
HYNES: I hug them both or imagine myself hugging them.
CAMPBELL: What does it feel like to hug me in your imagination?
HYNES: It feels warm.
CAMPBELL: It's just a wall of muscles.
HYNES: It feels like there's a lot of arms. There's a lot of arms.
CAMPBELL: Is it too much? You would tell me, right?
HYNES: And then it's matched with Drew's muscles. His firm body.
CAMPBELL: I'm going to give you the serious answer. I like to spend time with my son. That brings me comfort and joy. I give him a little hug and that grounds me.
HYNES: I smell my dog's Cheeto paws.
WALKER: Yeah, kids, wife, family. That brings comfort.
HYNES (to WALKER): He gets facial sometimes.
WALKER: A good facial brings me comfort.
CAMPBELL: Good sound bath.
WALKER: Yeah, a sound bath!
HYNES: Don't fire him up.
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In which ways do you feel like you are each wiser or you've grown since doing the last movie?
HYNES: I feel like I get dumber every day. You?
CAMPBELL: I feel like Tyler gets dumber every day as well.
WALKER: I listen to podcasts while I make breakfast. I feel like I'm getting smarter every day.
CAMPBELL: It's been two years since the first one. My son is 8 years old now, you grow just having to parent a child. You're learning something new every day. I feel I'm a little more tired than I was two years ago, but I feel smarter.
HYNES: You look beautiful.
CAMPBELL: Thanks guys.
HYNES: Did you get a sound bath? Is that why you look so good?
CAMPBELL: No. No.
WALKER: You’ve got to continuously work on yourself. Paul, he's an inspiration. Honestly, this guy has changed his life in so many ways. His work ethic, the way he parents, the way he's taking care of himself…
CAMPBELL: Thanks, pal.
WALKER: And he's humble, too.
Obviously, you three have spent a lot of time together, but is there anything you learned about one another recently that surprised you?
CAMPBELL: I was surprised that Tyler owned a suit. He's just surprising us at every turn.
WALKER: I'll pump this guy's tires up a bit. It surprises me how good these guys are. For example, there's this woman I met at Christmas Con. She said she flew in with her daughters and her daughters came over to the table and they're like, “Oh, we were on the same flight as Tyler.” And the daughter goes, “Tyler gave my mom his business class ticket. He just said, ‘You want to sit up here?’” And basically, swapped seats and sat next to the girls on the flight down to New Jersey. Like, who is this guy?
CAMPBELL: She'd never flown in business class. And he swapped seats.
WALKER: He's not out here tweeting about it or taking pictures, telling the world, but these moments and stories are truly amazing. I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised. It's amazing to be with guys like these and to be reminded that we can all be a little bit better every day.
HYNES: They assume I'm cold and dead inside, and so it was a bit of a shock.
The Three Wise Men are known for bringing gifts to baby Jesus. What's the best gift that you've given and who did you give it to?
WALKER: I've given a Jesus to a baby.
HYNES: What?
WALKER: A little toy Jesus.
HYNES: To a baby?
WALKER: Yeah, like a stuffed Jesus.
CAMPBELL: That's a good gift.
WALKER: Actually, it's a lie. I'm lying.
CAMPBELL: He made the whole thing up.
HYNES: That's my boy.
WALKER: There was a Christmas that I made it back home to Montreal where I surprised my parents. They didn't think I was going to be able to make it back from Los Angeles, so that was pretty special.
CAMPBELL: That's pretty nice. You know what? When I was growing up, my dad had a workshop in the back and he built furniture. He was sort of an amateur woodworker. And for Christmas one year, I made my mom — and she's still got it — the ugliest little jewelry box. I feel like it was inspired by a Tim Burton movie. It's this weird angular little bureau and the drawers pull out. It's filled with all of her jewelry to this day. It sits proudly. Every time I go in I'm like, “Oh man, that's bad.” But I think I was maybe 13 or 14, very proud of it.
WALKER: I feel like your mom holds on to a bunch of stuff like that from you.
CAMPBELL: My mom gave me a bag of teeth about six months ago. She's like, “These are your teeth, from when they all fell. Do you want these?” I'm like, “No.”
HYNES: I want those. That's the gift you can give me. That's the best gift you've ever given.
CAMPBELL: Oh, no, I immediately threw them in the garbage.
HYNES: What's wrong with you? Why would you do that? That was a gift from your mother.
CAMPBELL: They were my own teeth.
HYNES: Think of the time that she spent to keep those smelly things around.
Paul and Andrew, do you find yourselves keeping everything of your kids' around now? Do you have a stockpile of teeth?
WALKER: Yes, and I swore I wouldn't be that parent. There's these great printing places that you can go and send all your kids' artwork in a box, and they will digitalize it. You can keep it that way now and toss it all, which is great because there's only so much you can keep. I ask my kids now. I have them go like, “Okay, what do you feel is your best artwork?”
CAMPBELL: Yeah, what are the hits? What are we going to be able to sell one day down the road?
WALKER: Yeah. That's it.
HYNES: And critique yourself. “This macaroni necklace? Not that good.”
CAMPBELL: This finger painting does not resemble me. You missed the jawline a little bit.
WALKER: Anything that's like minimalist style. There's got to be more to it than just birds and water.
HYNES: Put some shading.
WALKER: Yeah, a submarine.
HYNES: Realistic.
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Three Wiser Men and a Boy premieres Saturday, Nov. 23, at 8 p.m. ET on Hallmark Channel.