Sarah Drew is continuing to make her mark on Hallmark, as the Grey’s Anatomy vet will be returning to the network this September, for the film Guiding Emily. The movie follows Drew’s titular character who is left permanently blind after a rock-climbing accident. As the movie goes on we’ll see her adjust to her life along with her potential guide dog, Garth, who is voiced by Will & Grace’s Eric McCormack. Considering the film’s premise, Drew got candid about how the moving Hallmark movie received help from the blind community, and she recalled just how “transformative” the experience was.
Not long after Sarah Drew starred in a Lifetime film alongside her former TV husband, she made the jump back to Hallmark, but it’s not a Christmas tale. With a film like Guiding Emily, there is a lot that has to be done in order to make sure everything is accurate and the story is being told authentically. Luckily, Drew had some help behind-the-scenes, as she explained while speaking with TVLine:
Shooting Guiding Emily was a deeply moving experience that allowed me to enter into the blind and partially sighted community in a very powerful way. We were honored to have two actresses from the community play roles in the film, and sitting with them both and hearing their stories was transformative for me and for our crew.
Whenever there are people on set that have the lived experience to relate to the story being told, it definitely helps make the project more authentic. The fact that Sarah Drew was even able to hear stories from two actresses from the community who were also in the movie will likely make the film even better. However, that is not all that was included in Guiding Emily, as the actress was also able to have an eye-opening experience while visiting the Guide Dogs of America:
I was also honored to visit the Guide Dogs of America open house the weekend before we started shooting and was able to tour the facility and learn all about the process for raising service dogs and the sacrifice puppy raisers make to train them for two years and then send them off to a member of the blind and partially sighted community to partner with them. Guiding Emily walks the audience into this world in a moving, tender, educational, and compassionate way. I hope the audience will be as affected by this film as we all were making it.
It sounds like a lot of research went into making Guiding Emily, and they worked closely with the blind community to make a compassionate film. From start to finish, and even before the movie began filming, it seems like this experience was moving, and I think we’ll be able to say the same thing about the film. Hallmark has been expanding its repertoire, and while this project may not be a full-blown romance, it still includes a lot of heart.
Coincidentally, Sarah Drew is not the only Grey’s star making a positive impact at Hallmark. Jaicy Elliot starred in the network’s new body positivity movie Romance in Style. Meanwhile, Hallmark star Sam Page went the other way by making the jump to Season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy.
Guiding Emily is set to premiere on Friday, September 8 at 9 p.m. ET on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, which is fitting because that’s National Service Dog Month. Already this film sounds like a tearjerker, so fans may want to prepare some tissues just in case. In the meantime, since it is still a couple of months away, there are plenty of upcoming films on Hallmark to look forward to, so make sure to check out what is coming to the network in the coming weeks.