Jessica Lowndes & Jesse Metcalfe

Jessica Lowndes & Jesse Metcalfe join us to break down their new movie 'Harmony From The Heart' and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're on with Mario a little bit. It'sop you on
Mario Lopez joining me now on zoom from the new
movie Harmony from the Heart, actress Jessica Allowns. Welcome to
the show. Jessica, are you I'm doing sounds good. Thank
you for having me. How are you? I'm doing well.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me
all the way from Costa RICAA. Beautiful bed behind you.

(00:25):
That's I'm sure a great place that you're staying at. Uh.
Congratulations on the film you you wrote it, you're starring
in it. That's so impressive. What's the premise? So I
play a music therapist, Vivian McKay, and in order to graduate,
I have been assigned a patient, but I must rehabilitate

(00:46):
and and get him to speak again. But there's a
deadline of two weeks, and there's a bunch of challenges
along the way because he happens to be my professor's brother.
And then on top of that, I meet his doctor,
who also happens to be as grandson, who has a
lot of skepticism about music therapy and what that entails.
But I was really fascinated about it because I I

(01:09):
wanted to write about my two loves one being loved
because I love love and music. And when I was
researching music therapy, I was just so blown away by
the amazing capacity that music has to heal people and too,
from anything from emotional to physical. It can it can
really impact and and help somebody. That's fascinating. I too

(01:32):
love love and music. I was not aware of music therapy, however,
So how does that work exactly? Or is it someone
who is struggling with UM writing and they say, I'm
just thinking out loud, what what is it? It can
be anything. In this movie, UM, I am assigned a
patient that I can no longer speak, and it's his

(01:52):
family's wish to hear him say I love you. As
his wife, I would love to hear him say I
love you in their fiftieth anniversary. And there's different techniques
and different songs and and it's kind of it's incredible.
And if you really think about how music can take
you back to that certain time in your life, that
that is the whole premise of it. And there's a
lot of different techniques and in different ways of doing it.

(02:14):
And so I did a lot of research and and
looked into it and I've never seen a movie about it,
and I wanted to to write something that would give
people hope but also a story about resilience and romance.
And this is actually the very very very first script
I ever wrote, too, so this one is really special
to me. I had a weird year a couple of
years ago with a pilot season where I kept testing

(02:36):
for jobs and getting down to the final two and
not booking, and I didn't know what was going on,
and so I forced myself to go home and write
every single night for an hour, just to keep myself
sane in this industry and to remind myself why I
got into this business in the first place. And then
I started treating it like a job, and I wasn't

(02:57):
writing for anybody. I was just writing for myself. And
so I write every day from nine to five and
i'd break for lunch. And this was the first time
that I ever wrote the end on a document, and
then I put it on a shelf. For me, it
was just to say that I wrote a script like
I wasn't I didn't know that I was going to
be making it. And then I was fortunate enough to
sell a script a couple of years ago a Hallmark
which we shot in Vancouver, and then this one came

(03:20):
back around and and it couldn't have it couldn't have
been made with a better group of people. And I
was just so blessed to have our director Michael Robson,
and and then Justin Metcalf attached himself. So it was
just it was incredible and I'm really really proud of it.
And yeah, it's it's very unlike anything that people have
seen in this genre. It's similar, but it's also it's

(03:42):
got a lot of depth to it, and it was
really fun to write all the original music for it.
Good for you taking the initiative. That's so impressive. So
many people just sit around wait for the phone or
maybe have a woe is Me attitude And the fact
that you, um were disciplined enough and and focus to
take matters into your own hands as an exercise. Then
it come to heruition. What a satisfied feeling. I'm proud.

(04:02):
That's awesome. So I know music is I love too?
Did you perform songs in this as well? I did
full play. There's quite a few, there's yeah, that was
it was a very full play Uh, but yeah. I
I perform a few songs throughout the film, and the
one song that you hear the most is an original

(04:25):
song called eleven eleven and the chorus is all the
things you wish you could say to someone, but you're
too scared to say it, and so that is. It's
a song that especial between me and my character's grandmother,
and then I end up performing it on stage at
the end, and then Jessie and I have a duet
at the end and we perform it had to be you.
It's also really fun, so you get to sing too.

(04:46):
I get to sing time. That was the whole thing.
I was like, Oh, a music therapist, this is fun.
I got the idea because I was talking to my mom,
who's a piano teacher, and I asked her what she
would do if she didn't teach piano, and she said
in music therapy. And when I was researching it, I
was absolutely blown away. And there's so many incredible stories
about how this is really helps people in so many

(05:07):
different ways. Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic. And I
know you didn't um direct this particular movie, but you have. Oh,
look at I believe your co star just uh just
joined in amazing Hi and sideways right now. You're a
little sideways right now, but I'm supposed to go vertical. Hey,

(05:28):
there you go. What's going on? Jesse? How are you? Man?
How are you? I'm doing well. I was talking to
your lovely co star slash writer, slash singing partner. Very impressive.
She wore all these hats. I've got the two. Jesse's
now on on camera. Um, hey, Jesse, tell me, tell

(05:48):
me about your role in all of this, man and
how you got involved. Okay, well, um, I play Dr
Blake Williams, a heart surgeon whose grandfather, the man who
raised him, has a mild stroke and loses his ability
to speak. And um. Jessica's character is getting her master's

(06:09):
I believe in speech therapy and um. In order to graduate,
she's been tasked with getting my grandfather's speak by Valentine's Day.
So I'm a I'm a surgeon who's very skeptical of
of her practices. And during the process of, you know,
rehabilitating my grandfather, we fall in love nice and I

(06:33):
hear you do a little singing yourself. I didn't I
didn't realize you singing on camera. I played guitar and
sing a bit of singing stuff on the last series
that I was on for the Hallmark Channel called jessp Shores.
But now you know, Jessica really does the heavy lifting,
uh in this one. You know, she's she wrote all

(06:56):
this original music and recorded it for the movie. And
we actually both went into the studio together and uh
recorded a song together for the movie as well. So
it's a really fun experience. That's awesome, man, very very impressive,
very romantic being that it's Valentine's Day and awesome, perfect
little film. Yeah, how are you? How are you too

(07:17):
going to be celebrating Valentine's Day? By the way, Jessica,
I'm gonna be in Costrika where I am right now.
Not a bad spot, not a bad spot. Um yeah,
we're trying to figure out where we could do a
viewing of this movie here, Like we're talking to the hotels.
We might do an actual viewing for the guests, which
would be very fun. Um. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna

(07:38):
be daring a celebrating with my boyfriend and Jesse. What
about you, I'll be here in Miami with my significant other. Uh,
don't have any uh, you know, clear plans yet, so
I should probably get on. That's Miami home now, Jesse

(07:59):
for the time being. And yeah, you know, I plan
on probably getting another place in Los Angeles at some point,
but yeah, right now, I'm I'm enjoying southern Florida. Nice.
Good for you, man, Good for you. Well, this sounds
like a fun film and perfect timing again with Valentine's
around the corner, so be sure to please check out
Harmony from the Heart Saturday on g a C. Family. Jessica, Jesse,

(08:23):
thanks so much for hanging out and congratulations on the film.
Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thanks, all right,
you too, jess Good to see you, man. I know
you're running little late, all right, take care of you guys.
Good life on with Mario Lupe