Hallmark star Paul Campbell has a lot to celebrate this holiday season. His latest film, Three Wise Men and a Baby, which he co-wrote and starred in, is the most-watched cable TV movie of the year. A laugh-out-loud funny, and surprisingly touching, rendition of the 1987 classic, Three Men and a Baby, the Christmas comedy marks a departure for the Hallmark Channel. Quite simply, it's a love story about three brothers.
Directed by Terry Ingram, Three Wise Men and a Baby follows the Brenner boys as they struggle-bus their way through caring for a mystery baby boy in the days leading up to Christmas. But the brilliant plot contrivances are the least of this deceptively heart-wrenching romp. (Believe me, you'll be gutted.)
We sat down with Brenner brother and all-around good egg Paul Campbell to talk all things Three Wise Men, including behind-the-scenes machinations, when to know you have a hit on your hands, and, of course, whether we can expect to see the Brenner boys on screen again. Reader: Prepare yourself.
Making Hallmark magic with Three Wise Men and a Baby
When it comes to the smashing success of the film, Campbell is of two minds. His knee-jerk reaction? "Who would've thunk?" Three Wise Men is just one of 40 original Christmas movies Hallmark rolled out this year alone. The odds of one of those films breaking through the noise of a crowded TV landscape to become the most-watched cable movie of 2022? Can't be high.
At the same time, Campbell and his co-writer, Kimberley Sustad, knew they were onto something when their longtime friends, Tyler Hynes and Andrew Walker, were cast as co-leads in the film. The scribes were able to write to the actors' strengths, and by the time filming rolled around, it was clear they had whipped up something special.
"Honestly, it was minute one of day one on set with those boys. And I just went, 'Oh, this is exactly what we thought it was going to be. It just worked. It worked perfectly," said Campbell.
But making a hit film is like catching lightning in a bottle seven times over. Even the well-oiled Hallmark machine has a cutting room floor.
"It sort of lives and dies in editing, believe it or not, because these movies typically run long when you finish shooting them," Campbell said. "And so they had to cut 25 minutes out of this movie, right? So you don't know what 25 minutes they're going to cut. And our editor [Hallmark alum Asim Nuraney] did an amazing job. I think we did fire on all cylinders from start to finish. They nailed it. So yeah, we kind of knew we were sitting on a rocket."
Campbell has been intermittently writing on the films he stars in since 2020's Christmas by Starlight. He has no trouble switching between the two hats these days. And as for letting the performers veer from his material? Campbell has one rule: The best idea wins.
"What I experienced the first time that I was an actor in a project that I had written was, it took me a few days to take off my writer's cap and stop really worrying about the dialogue and the structure and the tone and just be an actor," said Campbell. "And when I'm only an actor in these movies, I improvise all the time. And it'd be pretty crappy of me not to afford that to everybody else. And, also, everybody in the movie was so talented."
So what was written and what was improvised? It's tough to say, but Campbell credits the entire cast with expertly packing the breathing room between as-written dialogue with characterization. The result is a brisk, razor-sharp comedy that captures the wild rhythms of family life.
"It's all the little moments in-between the lines. There's definitely some lines that were added in the moment. But it's mostly how each actor filled the space in-between with comments and looks," said Campbell. "And, you know, that's what really gives this movie that true sense of family."
Bringing himself into Three Wise Men and a Baby
And it's a big family. There's Tyler Hynes's cantankerous video game developer, Taylor, who shirks every responsibility. Andrew Walker's community-minded firefighter, Luke, is the eldest brother who shouldered it all when the boys' father abandoned them. Campbell's socially-anxious pet therapist, Stephan, is the kind of village-weirdo role made even bigger by some outsized physical comedy. The great Margaret Colin, who starred in the original Three Men and a Baby, plays the steadfast Brenner matriarch.
"You'll see parts of who I am personally in all three boys," Campbell said. "I'm a middle child. And, you know, that brought with it a whole bunch of experiences from my childhood that I've sort of painted throughout this movie."
Although Three Wise Men and a Baby is a wacky-concept comedy with big laughs, there's a real beating heart at the center of the story that's glimpsed most strongly in one sequence, in which the Brenner brothers confront their shared past while parked in the car. Somehow, the mundane setting makes the raw emotions of the scene soar in an operatic sort of way.
How does a writer put that to the page? And what does it take for an actor to make it sing? For Campbell, it's not alchemy. It's just being human.
"In the car scene, what you don't see is that I actually cried the entire time. I don't remember not having tears streaming down my face," Campbell said. "And it probably ended up being too much for the movie. But what happened was, I just sat there and listened. And when you're present in a scene like that, and when you have some performers like Tyler and Andrew who also have rooted this very deeply in, you know, whatever their process is, you can feel it. Those boys are bringing something from their own lives to that scene."
Being moved on a personal level isn't the only grounding force on a film like this. There's another, more adorable centerpiece to the performances: Having a real-life baby for a scene partner.
"The most surprising thing was — in a movie where there's some bigger comedy beats and it can get a little bit wacky, and a little bit quirky and a little bit broad — having a baby strapped to your chest or carrying a baby just brings such a groundedness," Campbell explained. "It seems like you have this real life that you're caring for. It's not a doll. It's not something you can fling around. You have this precious cargo that has to be the center of attention in that scene. And it really changes how you approach each scene, and how you approach all the relationships and the tone of your voice. And it really just brings such a realness to the whole thing. It was an extraordinary experience."
Behind the scenes
The film marked the first time Campbell had ever worked with a baby, and he counts himself lucky. The twin girls who fulfilled the role of bouncing baby boy, Thomas, were the picture of professionalism — for the most part.
"We kind of won the baby lottery because they were so well-behaved," Campbell said. "And even when one of them was having a tough day on set or was a little bit cranky, the other one was just so happy to be there. And there were so many times we needed a happy baby. And there were times we needed a cranky baby. And we would kind of just swap them out."
Movie-making magic at its finest. But not everything was so, uh, well-choreographed. At least not at first. Campbell revealed the story behind that dance scene. In one of the film's funniest recurring bits, all three Brenner brothers spontaneously unite for a choreographed dance whenever a certain techno version of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" comes on.
As it happens, Campbell, Hynes and Walker made up the moves themselves during breaks in filming. What's more, they shot it in one take.
"We just spent every lunch hour for a week in the basement of this house just practicing different dumb things that we could do. And over the course of the week, it evolved into what it evolved into. We basically stopped choreographing when we had to shoot," Campbell said. "They were like, 'Guys, we're shooting right now.' And we're like, 'Okay, okay, we're coming! Coming, coming!' And then we just did it. And I think the take that they used was our first take. I think we just went up there and shot it dirty."
Campbell had initially planned for the boys to perform a very different holiday tradition. He wrote a parody of the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)." The opening lyrics went like this: Every party, yeah. Christmas party, yeah. Alas, the price of sampling the song was in the hundreds of thousands. But, hey. Release the Campbell cut?
Will there be a sequel?
Following the success of Three Wise Men and a Baby, Campbell plans to put on his writing cap more often. As for a sequel, the actor hinted at big things to come — with one caveat.
"The consensus was that a sequel would probably be a mistake only because it's so difficult to rekindle that magic and tell a different story, but the same," Campbell revealed. "We want to take the three of us — the three boys — and keep making different movies with the three boys. Reinvent ourselves every time. And so I think we can have a lot of fun. We have one idea that's already percolating, and we're going to have to float that by Hallmark Channel and see what they think."
Sounds like Paul Campbell, Tyler Hynes and Andrew Walker will grace our TV screens together again. Now there's a holiday tradition everyone can get behind.
READ MORE: Lacey Chabert's Best Hallmark Christmas Movies To Enjoy Over The Holidays
