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

Danny Pellegrino has carved out an exciting lane for himself in the podcasting space. The host of the popular show "Everything Iconic," Pellegrino has become known for recapping everything "Real Housewives"-related and for his engaging interviews with muppets and *NSYNC band member JC Chasez. A wildly hysterical creative, Pellegrino has written two best-selling books, including "The Jolliest Bunch," a collection of stories that surround the holiday season.

A lover of the holidays and Home Goods, the Midwest native feels at home when the Hallmark Channel airs its traditional holiday slate starting in November every year. Having started a separate podcast detailing his love for Christmas movies, Pellegrino often comments on his appreciation for Hallmark Christmas flicks in particular. It's no wonder why the comic has chosen to enter this arena with the new film "Deck the Walls," based on a story he conceived and starring Ashley Greene, Wes Brown, and Pellegrino himself.

"Deck the Walls" is a classic Hallmark Christmas story where the big city Interior Designer, Rose (Greene), returns to her small Colorado hometown to help her brother, Sal (Pellegrino), flip a house to support a family in need. While in town, Rose reconnects with a hunky contractor (Brown), while Sal encounters a blast from his past as well.

EDGE caught up with Danny Pellegrino to discuss "Deck the Walls," Hallmark's recent inclusion of LGBTQ+ representation, and what living out his holiday dreams on screen is like.

Watch EDGE's Matthew Creith talk with podcaster and comic Danny Pellegrino about his role in the Hallmark Channel's new holiday movie, "Deck the Walls," that premieres on November 29.

Below are excerpts from their conversation:

Danny Pellegrino on his love of the holidays and finally getting to work with Hallmark...

I'm so excited. I love the Hallmark Christmas movies. It's always been a dream of mine to be able to work in some capacity with Hallmark. So, it was just a dream come true. The experience of making it was really so creatively fulfilling to me and emotionally fulfilling to me, that everything else now is just sort of the cherry on top. I'm very excited for people to see it and I hope that people like it. I hope people who love these Hallmark holiday movies like it, especially because I'm a fan of them. I want to please the fans of these movies, and so I hope they like it, and otherwise, I'm just excited to share it with people in the world.

On LGBTQ+ representation, adding a gay love interest into Hallmark Christmas movies, and any pushback he received from the network...

Hallmark was really fantastic. I love these movies. I have a holiday movie podcast where I cover a lot of holiday movies, and I think we're in our sixth or seventh year of that now. In the beginning, we were covering a lot of the Made-for-TV holiday movies. My complaint from the beginning was that there wasn't a lot of representation, even within the side characters, even taking away those leads. Oftentimes, I would watch these movies and not see myself represented anywhere. So not even a speaking part for an openly gay character. That was always my criticism. Then a handful of years ago, I think Hallmark really listened to those complaints from not just myself, but of course, so many other people. Jonathan Bennett has been doing so much great work on the network, and he's got a new one on the Hallmark+ streaming app that I'm excited to check out. I think they've done a great job of kind of expanding to include LGBTQ+ storylines throughout these and so I just felt so wonderful and supportive, and I felt so lucky.

My arch nemesis/love interest in the film is played by Claybourne Elder, who's an openly gay actor as well. I feel really proud of that part of the story. Of course, [the main] story is Ashley and Wes. They're our leads, and it's really their love story. But Hallmark was so great about also including my love story and letting me play with those emotions too, which was great. I get to have little moments with Clay that I just feel lucky because I remember sitting behind a podcast microphone all those years ago saying, "When are they going to have LGBTQ characters on these because they're producing so many of them. So please do that. Give us some characters." They let me be me.