Ashley Williams might look like she has it all together on the outside, but internally her head can be full of insecurities — one of which inspired her two new Hallmark movies.
“I got really sad in an airport one day, and I had an idea for a movie based on sort of my own downward spiral of self-hatred,” Williams, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly, before laughing about how the concept for To Barcelona, With Love and To Barcelona, Forever, came about.
She explained, “I had this idea for about like a writer who, you know, she’s a terrible writer, but the person who translates her book into a different language [then] rewrites it and makes it an actually good book.” (This is the premise for To Barcelona, With Love premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, June 7.)
Williams joked, “That would be the only way that I would ever be a successful writer is if somebody rewrote what I wrote into an actually good book. That was literally my thought.”
The actress recalled, “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of not a bad idea for, like, a rom-com,” and eventually pitched it to Julie Sherman Wolfe, who is a writer for Hallmark.
Sherman Wolfe pointed out that they needed another Hallmark star to “speaks a different language” to make it work. “Right then Alison Sweeney walked by and I said, ‘Hey, Ali, do you speak another language?’ And she said, ‘Spanish,’” Williams told Us. “And I turned to Julie, and I said, ‘So the movie takes place in Barcelona.’ And that is how the idea came about.”
After a successful pitch, both Williams and Sweeney, 48, signed on to play writer Anna and translator Erica, respectively. The excitement, however, wasn’t over, because Sherman Wolfe liked the idea so much, she asked the actresses to figure out how to make it into two movies.
“We were really picky about the second movie because, of course, now there’s a lot of extra stress with that, like, making sure it’s different, making sure it’s really its own story,” Sweeney exclusively told Us, confessing she “hates” sequels so she didn’t want To Barcelona, Forever, which premieres on Saturday, June 14, to feel like one.
Sweeney noted that the first installment is about Erica (her character) and Anna’s “friendship” being introduced through miscommunication and a hilarious book debacle they find themselves in.
The second film is more about Anna’s (Williams) next steps after realizing that maybe her creative passions lie somewhere other than writing romance novels.
“At the end of the first movie, Anna is a completely different person who now is ready for what happens in the second movie,” Williams teased. “There does end up being a love story that, you know, is something completely different from what Anna could have ever considered.”
Williams explained to Us that To Barcelona, With Love is about a “misunderstanding” while To Barcelona, Forever is also about a misunderstanding with “some very well-intentioned deception” with an “incredibly, tall, handsome Spaniard” thrown in for good measure.
“Having lived through this crazy hijinks of a situation, like, then what happens to these women?” Sweeney asked. “What, what do they do? What do they learn from [the first movie] that they carry forward?”
She promised To Barcelona, Forever “very much gives you that next chapter of their lives to enjoy and with the lessons they learned, but maybe some more lessons to learn too.”
To Barcelona, With Love premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, June 7, at 8 p.m. ET. To Barcelona, Forever, follows on Saturday, June 14, at the same time.
