Ashley Williams has made enough Hallmark movies that seeing her name at the top of the cast list is hardly a surprise.
But Much About Love is different.
Williams stars in the new romantic comedy opposite Niall Matter, but she also helped develop and write the movie and served as an executive producer. Even more unusually, pieces of her real marriage, her husband's theater career, and even her son's artwork found their way onto the screen.
Much About Love, which premiered Aug. 29 and is now streaming on Hallmark+, casts Williams as Bea Bishop, a television director who returns to her theater roots for a Shakespeare festival. There she encounters Benny Gersten, played by Matter, an old flame who quickly rekindles what Hallmark describes as their "merry war of wits." The story is a modern reimagining of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
But the idea didn't start in a Hallmark writers' room. It started, appropriately enough, with Shakespeare conversations between Williams and her husband, producer Neal Dodson.
Williams told People that Hallmark executive Jessica Callahan once told her she had always thought of Williams as a Beatrice, Shakespeare's famously sharp-tongued heroine from Much Ado About Nothing. Williams took the idea home, and she and Dodson began talking about setting a Hallmark romance at a Shakespeare festival. The couple's conversations eventually led them somewhere unexpected: another Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew.
That connection came from Dodson's own past. After college, he worked at the Utah Shakespeare Festival on a production of The Taming of the Shrew directed by Peggy Shannon. Williams said Shannon approached the difficult play as a story of female empowerment. More than two decades later, Williams and Dodson tracked Shannon down and spent hours talking with her about that interpretation. Those conversations became a cornerstone of Much About Love, and Shannon helped inspire Williams' character, Bea.
So the movie does something a little unusual. Bea and Benny's romance draws from the Beatrice-and-Benedick relationship in Much Ado About Nothing, while the characters themselves are working on a production of The Taming of the Shrew. You don't have to know Shakespeare to follow the story, but Williams deliberately tucked in plenty for viewers who do.
She also knew exactly who she wanted sparring with her.
Williams and Niall Matter previously starred together in the 2020 Hallmark Christmas movie Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater. Williams told People that Matter was "critical" to the new project because his wit and timing could keep pace with the rapid verbal exchanges the Shakespeare-inspired story required. Matter plays Benny, Bea's former flame and theatrical counterpart.
Then Williams began slipping pieces of her own life into the movie.
One of the most personal comes during a scene in which Bea and Benny have trouble saying what they're feeling and begin writing to one another in crayon on a paper tablecloth. Williams revealed that the idea came directly from her relationship with Dodson. The real tablecloth from their own love story is still framed in their home.
And her husband ended up in that scene in another way.
When production needed overhead shots of the characters writing on the tablecloth and Matter wasn't available, Dodson rolled up his sleeves and stood in. The hands viewers see writing in those overhead shots belong to Williams' real-life husband.
Their son got into the movie, too. Williams told People that artwork created by her son was incorporated into the production, one of several personal details she planted throughout the film.
All of this arrives at an interesting point in Williams' Hallmark career. She began appearing on Hallmark Channel more than a decade ago with October Kiss, but her work with the company has expanded well beyond acting. She created Hallmark's Make Her Mark initiative, designed to give aspiring female directors mentorship and on-set experience, and she has increasingly worked as a writer, producer, and director. Hallmark notes that Williams has also directed an episode of ABC's The Rookie.
And Williams may not be finished with Shakespeare.
She has said she believes Shakespeare's plays contain structures that lend themselves surprisingly well to Hallmark-style romantic storytelling and has expressed interest in exploring more adaptations.
That may be the most interesting thing about Much About Love. On the surface, it's another Hallmark second-chance romance. Underneath, it's a movie assembled from a 400-year-old comedy, a theater director her husband hadn't spoken to since the 1990s, a real-life love story preserved on a paper tablecloth, a child's artwork, and two actors who already knew exactly how to make each other laugh.
For Ashley Williams, this time the part behind the camera may be just as interesting as the one in front of it.
Much About Love is streaming now on Hallmark+ and airs again Saturday, Sept. 12, at 10 pm on Hallmark Channel.