Hallmark’s Rachel Boston and Brendan Penny Share How They Were Paired (Exclusive)

Some matches are made in heaven. Other things can happen on a cruise.

Such was the case with Hallmark Channel favorites Rachel Boston and Brendan Penny for this year’s Christmas movie, the more the merrierWhich will premiere on Friday, November 28.

“We met a year ago on this cruise, and we made each other laugh a lot,” Boston, 43, tells PEOPLE from a lounge aboard the 2025 Hallmark Christmas Cruise.

Penny, 47, agrees, “We didn’t know each other at all before that and we had a great time on the cruise.” “There was this dress-up night where we were kind of saying, ‘Hey, let’s talk to Tatiana (Erasme), who’s the head of casting.’ And so we put forward the idea that even though we haven’t worked together yet, we would really love to do that, and if it’s a possibility, we would strongly consider it. And it landed.”

“And here we are!” Boston connects. “We made each other laugh the whole time. I don’t know how funny we were, but we made each other laugh.”

“I was so funny,” Penny said.

“You Were Hilarious, especially,” Boston laughs. “We did this game show together, and we created this whole backstory where we were newlyweds, and all we had was this game that we played. And then they were like, ‘Ooh, maybe we could play him, he could be the Doctor.'”

Of course, actors play doctors in this the more the merrierAccording to the official synopsis, “Alice (Boston), an emergency room doctor at a small rural hospital, always works the night shift on Christmas Eve and goes the extra mile to make the holiday merry and bright for the patients and staff, When it snows at the hospital, Alice and Brian (Penny), newly appointed top-rated cardiologist, find themselves in the middle of a real-life childbirth when three women – including the only OBGYN for miles – go into labor, The rarest birthday of the year approaches, As the night draws in, Alice, Brian, and the rest of the staff work hard to make the holidays festive for all the patients – though they may have different approaches to medicine and life, and by the end of their shift, it’s clear that this may be the Christmas Eve that changes them both forever,

Check out what he had to say about his experience making the film below.

People: What do you think it is about yourself that makes you credible as a doctor?

Brendan Penny: Maybe the wardrobe. Even though the character is a doctor, it’s more about his personality. He is very conscious and focused about his work and takes it very seriously. And then he’s kind of a fool when it comes to his love life. So I could dial in.

Rachel Boston: The role was looking for a foolish fool.

Money: Yes, that’s me. This is correct.

Boston: No, he did a really great job. It was very believable that you were a cardiologist. My sister-in-law is an emergency room nurse, so we called her up and got some wisdom before we started filming. I love medical shows, so I thought this would be a really fun way to watch a Christmas movie. And then seeing two people who are also really intelligent, who meet each other on the same level, and now they’re suddenly potentially going to be working together for years, is an interesting way to start a Christmas movie.

Rachel, you’re on erSo you on the other hand have been in a hospital drama before.

Boston: Yes. That’s how I met Andrew Walker. I was a patient. John Wells discovers our great love story, Andrew Walker and I. I played a soldier who had just returned from Iraq, and he proposed to John Stamos at the end of my treatment.

Money: You go there. and on Chesapeake CoastI was actually an FST, so I was in the Army as an emergency physician.

How difficult was it to do the medical jargon?

Money: I had to talk about heart problems with an actor, but it was so well written that it wasn’t really hard to keep up with the jargon involved.

Boston: When he called me about this and playing the role of a doctor, I immediately agreed to it. I was drawing page after page of words that I had to research and look up. But there are a lot of children. it is called the more the merrierAnd on Christmas Eve there is a baby boom in this town.

Penny: MeIt’s a baby kaboom! There are many like this.

That means there were a lot of kids on the set, I believe. how was that?

Boston: I loved it so much. They were very young.

Money: It was great because they were really little newborns, but everyone was very respectful. You only have a certain amount of time. When they came on set, you could hear a pin drop, which you can’t hear on a movie set unless you’re walking around. But between setups, it was absolutely quiet.

Boston: This is the only time I’ve ever seen Brendan shut up.

Money: Yes, it was a struggle.

Was it an added challenge trying to work around all those babies?

Boston: This was nerve-wracking for the team. For us it was heaven.

Money: Yes. It’s very easy to lose sight of the child you should be and love. I mean, it’s the easiest thing in the universe.

Boston: it was very nice. They were only a few weeks old. When you have babies on set, there’s a level of pressure on our A-game because we only have a very small window.

Money: As you’ll see, we were.

Rachel, does this give you flashbacks to when your daughter was that age?

Boston: Oh, so many. I mean, when I was reading the script and just thinking about different chapters of women’s lives. We have so many different stories where you get a chance to celebrate women and how strong they are and the beauty of creating life. So I thought this was a wonderful way to live in a Christmas miracle.

And there’s a whole magical element to this movie because of Damar Hamlin.

Money: This is correct.

Boston: Abbott has a program called HeartMates that Brandon’s character works with a lot because he’s a cardiologist and it’s a program that Damar Hamlin started for kids who have heart conditions similar to the ones he’s faced publicly. And it connects them online to a community of kids who may feel a little more isolated because they’re really young.

Money: And this program is not that old, but it is developing so rapidly. What he’s doing out there and what the whole organization is doing is absolutely fantastic. So it was a real privilege to be able to promote it and give it the light it deserves. That was really amazing.

Boston: I think seeing these kids who are in such a vulnerable place, but they find community, I mean, they’re giving a lot of their heart.

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the more the merrier Premieres Friday, November 28 at 8PM ET/PT on Hallmark Channel and the following day on Hallmark+.