Sadie LaFlamme-Snow Loves Keeping The Way Home Fans Guessing

The Hallmark formula is one you can count on: Girl leaves behind big-city life for a charming small town, she meets the quintessential small-town boy (who may or may not own a Christmas tree farm), they fall in love, and they share a chaste kiss to signal their happily-ever-after. The Way Home, a wholesome show revolving around three generations of women, subverts those expectations — and that’s part of the reason Sadie LaFlamme-Snow loves it so much.

The 24-year-old, who plays Alice Landry on the show, knows that it’s something different for the channel. “We start the series with a woman who moves home to her small town, and the first thing that happens is that she sees the guy who’s had a crush on her since childhood,” she tells Elite Daily. “You're thinking, ‘OK, where are they going with this?’”

The show, which features big names like Grey’s Anatomy’s Chyler Leigh and Groundhog Day’s Andie MacDowell, could easily fall into the classic Hallmark framework. But there’s a twist: The pond on the Landry property transports people to different timelines. For LaFlamme-Snow’s character Alice, the pond brings her to the 1990s when her mom was a teenager, and she witnesses firsthand the tragedies that drove the family apart.

It’s a heavy story, but there’s a wholesome center amid all the drama and turmoil. “The love story is between the three generations of women,” LaFlamme-Snow says. “There are plenty of ups and downs, but it always comes back to mothers and daughters.”

There's girl power, but there's also girl messing up.

On Jan. 21, The Way Home returned for its second season, and this time around, the show’s pushing even more boundaries with major payoff. “People have all these questions that we’ve been dying to answer, and we're just on the edge of doing so,” the Toronto-based actor says. “But we're only halfway through Season 2, so what does that say about the rest of the episodes?”

Here, LaFlamme-Snow opens up about bringing time travel to Hallmark, The Way Home’s sophomore season, and her relationship with the all-star cast.

Elite Daily: You mentioned in a recent interview with Photobook that this show was a bit different from Hallmark’s typical G-rated catalog, calling it “new elevated, complex content” for the brand. What about The Way Home distinguishes it from other Hallmark shows?

Sadie Snow: What I find so impressive is that the show keeps the core of what Hallmark is known for: elements of hope, family, and love. From that, they added in the suspense, intensity, and intrigue. We give our audience the challenge to keep up with all these little Easter eggs. That’s what takes it into a new territory.

Even though you're going on an intense emotional journey with the characters, the audience knows they're going to be taken care of emotionally. You're not going to walk away feeling traumatized by something you've seen.

I've seen people wondering if certain details are Easter eggs. I’m like, ‘Oh, did we steal that from Taylor Swift?’

ED: I might have gotten a little traumatized watching the car crash in Season 1.

SS: OK. Yeah, I'll be honest, that was traumatizing for me to watch, too.

ED: I know you were happy about how much the Hallmark audience embraced The Way Home. Did it also draw new viewers in?

SS: What’s really exciting for me is when I see people saying, "Oh, I knew Hallmark for their Christmas movies, but I've never really gotten into it until this show, and now I’m hooked.”

ED: Every episode, it seems like there’s another time travel twist. As you were filming, did you know where those storylines were going, or was it a surprise?

SS: I knew nothing about the plot. I made it my mission to not get ahead of myself. I’d literally cover my ears if they started talking about what was coming up next. Alice was discovering it all in real time, so I really didn’t want to know anything that was ahead.

ED: Did anything catch you off guard?

SS: The car crash was something that I never expected. We really had to gain the trust of our audience for it to work. Like, you've already seen an 8-year-old disappear, and that was hard enough. Do you trust us to keep going?

When I got the script, I was texting Chyler selfies of me crying. I was like, "What the heck is happening?"

It’s hard to fangirl over someone who’s like family to me.

ED: You’re working alongside some iconic actors in this, like Andie MacDowell and Chyler Leigh. What was that been like?

SS: At first, I was scared. But as soon as we all got together on set, I realized how little I had to worry about. They’re easy to be around and so much fun. Both of them are so generous and warm. I feel like a lot of people can sacrifice the kind of generosity when they’re working so hard, but that's never a sacrifice either of them make.

ED: Did you fangirl at all when meeting them?

SS: I was trying so hard not to. Now, it's not a problem. It’s hard to fangirl over someone who’s like family to me. It’s a relief because at first I thought I’d be so intimidated since they’re so iconic. Now, it’s like, “Oh, you mean my mom? Oh, you mean my grandma?”

ED: Do you guys have a group chat where you discuss the episodes as they come out?

SS: Yes, we’ll send screenshots of what people are saying on Twitter, especially the most outrageous fan theories. There was one where people were saying that Jacob is the horse. That's a bit wild. It's a time-traveling pond, not an anamorphic pond.

ED: In Season 1, a huge part of Alice’s storyline is her realizing her mom, Kat, is human — and that she had a life before motherhood. I think that’s something every kid discovers about their parents as they grow up: that their parents are people too. What was it like, playing that discovery onscreen?

SS: It's cool because I feel like I'm starting to go through that in my real life. I think something that sets Alice apart from a lot of teenagers is that her time-traveling gives her this old-soul kind of wisdom, but also responsibility and pressure.

ED: The Way Home focuses on telling the story of three generations of women. What do you think people get wrong about female-centric stories?

SS: A lot of people think of female-centric stories as girl-power stories. Something that’s exciting about The Way Home is that there's girl power, but there's also girl messing up, and girl hurting each other's feelings. A lot of the show is about girls being more complicated than so many TV shows allow them to be.

ED: Are there any moments in Season 2 you’re particularly excited for people to watch?

SS: My favorite thing about Season 2 is that now we've trained the audience to look out for tiny details that could mean something. I've seen people wondering if certain details are Easter eggs. I’m like, “Oh, did we steal that from Taylor Swift?" People are screenshotting and zooming in on the tiniest little title on a book cover.

Sometimes, I’m like, “Oh my God, these people are onto us.” But some of it's just like, “Oh, I wouldn't zoom in quite that close. You're not getting anything from that.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.