Lacey Chabert has been a fixture on the Hallmark Channel since 2010, starring in 35 movies over the course of her career. The actress, who earned fame on the Lindsay Lohan-led classic Mean Girls, says she relates the "sentimental" and "nostalgic" feelings that Hallmark movies brings, and she enjoys the values they represent, no matter the genre.
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"I always look for the sentimental or nostalgic part of things," Chabert tells Vulture in a recent interview. "That rings true in all of these movies, whether it be a mystery or a Christmas one or a romantic comedy or even more dramatic. I'm the kind of person who wants to sit down and watch something that makes me feel good."
Throughout her tenure on Hallmark, Chabert has also been able to take on more creative roles. The actress says she serves as a producer on all her films and she is often involved in developing movies from the beginning. She also says she would like start directing films. When it comes to producing new films, Chabert would like to create something that reflects her Southern upbringing in the small town of Purvis, Mississippi.
"I think about how everyone in that town supported me when I was a kid when my family moved to New York and I started in the business," she says. "It's been a longtime dream of mine to tell a real southern story where we have accents and everything. When I moved from Mississippi, I had a very thick southern accent, which is now, as you can hear, not the case. I have a few different ideas, but my favorite one is a story centered around southern characters in a Steel Magnolias kind of way, which is one of my favorite movies. Depicting the culture of living in the South and growing up there and film it in Purvis."
Chabert says she's a Hallmark "lifer" and she has ideas for "50 more movies."
"I hope this is just the beginning," she says.