Hallmark Star Brad Abramenko Talked to Us About Hope Valley 1874

What Is Hope Valley 1874?

Hope Valley 1874 is an eight-episode prequel series streaming exclusively on Hallmark+, set 36 years before the events of When Calls the Heart. The show follows Rebecca Clarke, a widow who travels from Chicago to the Western Canadian frontier with her young daughter, only to find that the boardinghouse she purchased is nothing like advertised. Bethany Joy Lenz leads the series as Rebecca, with Benjamin Ayres as rancher Tom Moore and Jill Hennessy as Hattie Quinn, a pioneer woman at the center of the growing settlement. New episodes drop every Thursday on Hallmark+.

Brad Abramenko plays Nash McCabe, Tom’s foreman and closest confidant, a man who runs the ranch like it is his own and would do anything to provide for his wife Peggy and their two children. If you have not yet read our Hope Valley 1874 premiere review or our conversation with Benjamin Ayres, both are worth your time before diving in here.

He Was Born for This Role, and He Knew It

Before Brad even read the audition sides, he already had a 1874 Colt Peacemaker hanging on his wall at home. He has been practicing gun spinning and lasso throwing for years. He grew up on a small farm in Almonte, Ontario, baling hay at ten years old, riding horses before he could drive, and delivering calves. When the audition for Hope Valley 1874 landed in his inbox, and he looked it up and saw what it was, his reaction was immediate: this is the one.

He self-taped three scenes and knew the moment he finished one of them that he was going to book the job. He texted his agent right away and told him exactly that. Within a week, he was shortlisted. He believes he was the first actor cast on the show, before even the leads were in place, which is part of why production was pushed from its original December start date to January. He spent that waiting period doing a deep dive on every castmate he could find, watching their work, getting to know them before they ever met in person.

He has done background work on many Hallmark productions over seven years of building his career in Vancouver, including a small role as an RCMP officer in When Calls the Heart itself. He was also a co-star in the Hallmark Channel movie, ‘A Splash of Love’. He knew the world. He knew the fan base. He was ready.

Holly’s Question: Bringing a Stunt Background Into a Physical Role

Fantasy Land News got to ask Brad how his background as a stunt performer shaped the way he approached Nash, a character whose life is almost entirely physical. His answer was honest and grounded. Growing up on a farm means you are already hands-on in a way that is hard. Feeding cattle, delivering calves, operating heavy equipment, and working through bad weather without the option to stop. That experience lives in your body, and it transfers directly to a character like Nash.

As for the horse work, Brad described riding as just like getting back on a bike. He grew up with horses and was completely at ease on set. He did nearly all of his own riding throughout the season, only handing off to a stunt performer for one sequence, the fall from the horse in episode four. He said he read that part of the script, thought about it for about thirty seconds, and made the call immediately. He is at a good age now, as he put it, and he wants to be around for the rest of the scenes.

Nash McCabe: Tough Outside, Butter at Home

Brad described Nash as a man with a tough cowboy exterior who turns completely different the moment he walks through his front door. The way Nash speaks to his wife Peggy, is unlike how he speaks to anyone else on the ranch or in the territory. He used a phrase that landed well in the room: Nash just turns into butter around her.

Chelsea Hobbs plays Peggy McCabe, and the two actors made a point of building their friendship before the cameras rolled. As soon as they both booked the show, Chelsea called Brad, and they agreed to go out for drinks, talk through the relationship, and make sure the chemistry felt real. By the time they got to the set, it was already there. Brad had nothing but admiration for her. He called her talented, warm, and an absolute sweetheart to work with, which tracks perfectly with what Peggy is on screen: Nash’s safe place, his level head, the person who brings him back to himself when everything else is falling apart.

Nash and Peggy are the only established married couple on the show going into the season, which gives their relationship a different weight than the romantic storylines unfolding around them. Brad teased that their dynamic shifts considerably in the second half of the season in ways that give both of them room to grow, and that he is genuinely excited for Hearties to see that side of Nash.

Nash and Tom: Brothers in Everything But Name

The relationship between Nash and Tom Moore is central to the show, and Brad talked about it with real affection. The two men go back to Montana, and their bond runs deep, something closer to brotherhood than employment. Nash takes his job on the ranch seriously in part because of what Tom means to him. Without Tom, he could not provide for his family the way he needs to. Without Nash, the ranch does not run.

That dynamic is significantly stressed after Nash has a mishap in episode four. A broken leg in 1874 is not a minor inconvenience. It is a potential death sentence, and both men feel that weight. Brad said he wants to see the show eventually send Nash and Tom off on a journey together. He wants the adventure inside the adventure.

The Broken Leg Scene Was No Small Thing

Brad was not going to downplay how much went into filming the aftermath of Nash’s accident. He described pushing himself so hard in that scene that he was nearly hyperventilating, getting close enough to passing out in real time that the feeling became the performance. Director Martin kept pushing for more pain, and with every note Brad went further, drawing on the full weight of what a broken leg would actually mean in the 1800s: not just physical suffering but the real possibility that this could be the end, that his family could lose him, that everything he has built could collapse.

He had the whole cast around him in that scene, and he could see on their faces that something real was happening. That helped. The stunt itself, the actual fall from the horse, went to stunt performer Carson, who hit the ground hard four or five times and was sore for days afterward. Brad has the footage and plans to post it.

He Was Already a Hallmark Fan Before He Got the Role

Brad is not new to Hallmark. Beyond his background work on When Calls the Heart, he appeared in a Hallmark film called A Splash of Love before booking this role. He understands the Hearties fan base, respects it deeply, and said he knew when he read the script that this show had the ingredients to connect. The prequel premise, the Heartie family’s love of the original series, the western setting that nobody in the Hallmark world had really done at this scale, all of it pointed toward something special.

He also came in with experience in a completely different fan community. Before booking Hope Valley 1874, Brad had appeared in DCU content in a role connected to Superman, which brought him a massive and passionate following concentrated heavily in South America and skewing toward a much younger audience. At its peak, he was fielding close to a thousand direct messages a day for months. That is a specific kind of pressure, and talking through how those two fan worlds compare was one of the more fun threads of the entire conversation. He described the Hearties as more conversational, more personal, easier to actually connect with in a real way, and said that understanding the difference helped him walk into the Hallmark world with confidence rather than uncertainty. He is not starting over. He is adding a new chapter.

The Set Is Real, and the Weather Was Terrible

One of the most fun threads of the conversation was about what it was actually like to film on location. The McCabe house is a repurposed set (Brad says it’s Rosemary and Lee’s house) painted blue, the first structure on the left in the familiar Jamestown location. The interior was beautifully dressed, and the production worked carefully with every camera angle to avoid picking up anything that would date the setting to the modern era of When Calls the Heart, including the lighthouse, the water tower, and various other landmarks. Some shots took four or five takes just to get a clean angle.

The field and stream behind the house are real. The mud is real. The rain was relentless for most of the shoot, with a brief stretch of nice weather that Brad remembers fondly precisely because it was so rare. Background performers in wool coats sat on horses for hours in the rain. The frogs and snakes on the property were not props. Brad loved every bit of it and said the conditions put him into character faster than any acting exercise ever could.

Behind the Scenes: Karaoke Until 3 a.m.

The cast of Hope Valley 1874, bonded quickly and thoroughly. Brad shared one standout moment: Ryan Doyle pulled out a guitar, Jill Hennessy started singing, and the entire cast ended up together for an impromptu performance of Wagon Wheel, which Brad posted to his Instagram Stories. There were also two full cast karaoke nights that ran until three in the morning. Brad sang country, including Montgomery Gentry’s Speed and a Shania Twain duet with a costar. He said Jill Hennessy was an obvious standout. Brad also claimed he hit some notes himself.

He also said something that stuck: the wrap party at the end of a season is always the moment everyone truly opens up, and he thinks it would make more sense to hold it at the beginning so everyone walks onto set already knowing who they are working with. When Ben Ayres messaged him on Instagram before filming started to say congratulations, it set the tone for everything that followed. Brad said Ben made him comfortable from day one, and he is genuinely lucky to have him as his scene partner and on-screen boss.

Nash Has a Dream, and So Does Brad

There is a thread running through Brad’s take on Nash that is also clearly personal. Nash’s stubbornness about education, his insistence that knowing how to run a ranch is all anyone needs, is something Brad understands from the inside. He talked about his own plans to move to Alberta and start a buffalo farm, plans he set aside because he did not want his young son growing up isolated from family. He is going back to Ontario instead. He wants his son to grow up with cousins around him. Nash is working through a version of the same tension on screen, slowly realizing that what is best for him is not always what is best for his kids.

Brad’s son, who turned one on Brad’s birthday, made a brief appearance during the junket, tugging at his dad’s foot from off camera. It was one of those unscripted moments that reveals more about a person than any question could.

As for what he hopes Nash’s legacy looks like in the founding of Hope Valley, he wants Nash to let go of his stubbornness, make sure his kids are on the right path, and earn a real stake in the ranch he has poured himself into. He wants Tom to recognize what Nash has given to that land and to make it official. That feels like a fair ask.

Our Take

Brad Abramenko was one of the easiest people we have interviewed in this space. He is personable, quick with a laugh, and genuinely fun to be in a room with. There was no moment where the conversation felt like a press obligation. He talked to us the way you talk to someone you just met at a party who turns out to be great company.

The proud new dad moment was real. When his one-year-old wandered in and tugged at his foot during the junket, Brad lit up. He did not rush past it. He introduced his son to a screen full of Hallmark podcasters, told him not to touch the buttons, and then carried right on. That moment told us everything about who he actually is underneath the cowboy hat.

His background as a stunt performer on DCU projects gave the conversation an unexpected dimension. He was not just talking about his Hallmark work in the abstract. He had navigated two completely different kinds of fame: a younger fan base that was intense and high-volume, and a Hearties community that feels more like a conversation. Understanding that difference clearly helped him walk into this role with the right mindset. He was not intimidated by the Heartie fan base. He was genuinely excited to be welcomed into it.

Nash is not a lead, but he is essential, and Brad plays him with a quiet physicality that comes from actually living the life the character is built around. He did not have to pretend to be comfortable on a horse or in the mud. He brought all of that with him. Hearties are going to love what is coming for the McCabe family in the second half of the season.

Joining Fantasy Land News in the junket were Everything About Hallmark, Swing My Heart Podcast, RomCom Love, Homer Keyy’s Podcast, Heart in Motion Podcast, Suspenders Unbutton Media, and Faith, Love, and Friendship Podcast. Hope Valley 1874 is streaming now on Hallmark+, with new episodes dropping every Thursday.