EDGE Interview: Podcaster Danny Pellegrino Feels at Home in Hallmark's 'Deck the Walls'

What Pellegrino loved about playing the character of Sal in "Deck the Walls"...

The character of Sal, who I play, he's all of these different aspects of a gay character that, even as an actor auditioning, you don't normally see when you get a script or something like that. It can often feel like the character is just one level, one stereotype. What I love about Sal is he's kind of well rounded. He can be flamboyant at times. He also does construction. There's a relationship he has with the Wes Brown character that I'm really proud of. We play best friends, and he's a straight guy. There's nothing about Sal [being] gay and Brysen not gay and they're best friends. Like, there's never a thing about that. It's just sort of widely accepted. I'm very proud of that dynamic as well. I feel like that's a rare thing, and not in just these movies, but in film in general, it's rare to see a straight man and a gay man be friends like that. There's all these sort of little aspects about the LGBTQ+ angle that I'm really proud of and and some of it might not be like a flashy storyline.

Danny Pellegrino addresses there are many product placements in "Deck the Walls," as well as his brand of humor in referencing everything from the Muppets to the "Real Housewives" in the film:

It was my Hallmark Christmas movie, and I didn't know until I got to set that they were going to be doing a brand integration. So I was very excited. It felt perfect for there to be Home Goods. If you listen to my podcast, you know the "Real Housewives" integrations when sometimes you're watching the "Real Housewives of New York," and all of a sudden they're at the movies talking about "The Hustle." So it kind of made me laugh. But obviously nowadays people have to do them for these movies, but I think it was really fun. We had the Nutella scene, we baked cookies and we were just cracking up. Our main cast is in it, and we were just cracking up the whole time, because it's just a montage of us baking cookies, and we were all sugared up because the cookies were really good. I got a stomachache because I just kept taking a bite.

It was the first big role I've ever done. I've done little scenes here and there, acting wise and student films or indie projects and I've done plenty of hosting on camera. But acting wise, it's one of my first sort of big roles. I didn't realize when you eat something on camera, you eat it a million times. So with the cookie, I, like, took a bite, and then every time they had to, replace my cookie, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I have to keep eating this anyway." But the Nutella people were great. Then with the Easter egg stuff, I was so happy to add in some of those improvised moments that the director let me play around with on set. But a lot of those were in the initial scripts. The Muppet line was improvised, and I was really happy about that getting in the final script. Then, yeah, there's a bunch of other stuff, and little "Housewives" references too.

"Deck the Walls" debuts on the Hallmark Channel on November 29th.