Jedidiah Goodacre sat down with Fantasy Land News for a one-on-one conversation about his role as Clayton Cooley in Hope Valley 1874, the new Hallmark+ prequel series now airing weekly on Thursdays. Clayton is one of Tom Moore’s ranch hands, a young man with a mysterious past who has quietly found his footing in the frontier community taking shape around him and who is very much at the center of the season’s most talked-about love triangle. Jedidiah has an impressive resume spanning everything from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to Legacies to the Paramount feature Margaux, but this conversation was warm and unhurried in the best way, and he brought real thought and affection to talking about Clayton.
You can watch our full interview on the Fantasy Land News YouTube channel.
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+.
Jedidiah Goodacre plays Clayton Cooley, a ranch hand on Tom’s property and one of the younger members of the community being built around him. If you have not yet caught up with our Hope Valley 1874 premiere review or our conversations with Benjamin Ayres, Brad Abramenko, or Chelsea Hobbs, all three are worth reading before diving in here.
Holly’s Disney Question: From Descendants to Hope Valley
Because Fantasy Land News covers both Hallmark and Disney, Holly asked the question that had to be asked: What is it like going from one legacy franchise in Descendants to another in the When Calls the Heart universe?
Jedidiah’s answer was completely charming. He said someone had already asked him whether Chad from Descendants and Clayton from Hope Valley 1874 would actually get along if they ever met. His take: yes, absolutely, and it would be a fascinating dynamic. Clayton would be the older brother figure, grounded and weathered by frontier life, maybe passing along a few hard-won lessons. Chad would return the favor by helping Clayton loosen up, stop overthinking, and trust his instincts a little more. It is a genuinely fun comparison and one that shows how much affection he has for both projects.
He also talked about what it means to have been part of two legacy fan communities. He has recently started attending conventions and meeting people in person, and the experience has genuinely moved him. Jedidiah called himself a lucky guy, counted his lucky stars, and meant it. When Holly mentioned that her daughter grew up watching Descendants, he smiled and pointed out that every year a new group of kids finds that movie and falls in love with it all over again. That kind of longevity is its own reward.
Who Is Clayton Cooley?
Jedidiah was thoughtful and precise about how he had built Clayton from the inside out. In the dynamic of the ranch, if Tom and Nash are like brothers, Clayton is something like a cousin, a little further out on the family tree but genuinely part of it. His backstory has not been fully spelled out on screen yet, and Jedidiah was careful not to speak out of turn about where the writers may take it. But he has made his own choices about where Clayton comes from, and those choices shape everything.
His read on the character is that Clayton arrived in this territory lost and alone, someone who had been on his own for long enough that finding a place in Tom’s orbit felt like being taken in. He used the phrase stray dog, and he meant it with warmth rather than judgment. Tom saw something in Clayton worth putting time into, and that investment changed the trajectory of his life. Clayton carries a real loyalty to Tom because of it, and Jedidiah plays that debt as something quiet and deep rather than something Clayton announces. Tom has become the father figure Clayton did not have before, and that is the foundation on which everything else is built on.
The Love Triangle: Clayton, Olivia, and Alexander
The three younger characters at the center of Hope Valley 1874‘s romantic storyline are Clayton, Olivia, and Constable Alexander Vaughn. Jedidiah was candid about where his own heart sits in that dynamic: he is team Olivia, and he cannot help it. He wants it to go Clayton’s way. But he also said something generous about it, noting that Olivia has to do what is right for her own heart, and that he respects that even while rooting for his own character.
He framed the triangle in a way that felt true to the period and to the show’s tone. These are young people at exactly the age in 1874 when life’s biggest decisions start pressing in. Do you stay in this small, growing community or chase something bigger? Do you start a family here or keep moving? And do you finally say out loud what you have been feeling for someone you see at the trading post every single day? Those are not small questions in any era, and Jedidiah plays the weight of them without tipping into melodrama. What other cast members have described as Clayton doing everything for someone who does not seem to notice lands exactly as quietly as it should.
Vampires to the Frontier: From Supernatural Roles to Period Western
Jedidiah has played vampires, princes, and supernatural beings across some of television’s most stylized productions. Hope Valley 1874 is a very different creative world, and Holly asked how the shift felt. His answer was honest and a little funny. He said he is personally much more suited to being down in the dirt. The wardrobe alone has been one of the highlights of the whole experience. Coming from productions where everything he wore was carefully composed and pristine, landing in frontier clothing that is built to look lived-in has been a genuine pleasure.
He also admitted, with complete good humor, that he is exactly the kind of person who needs a meal shirt, that large cover-up actors wear over their costumes at lunch so they do not ruin the wardrobe between takes. He owns that about himself without any embarrassment, and it is the kind of small, real detail that makes an interview feel like an actual conversation rather than a press appearance.
On the deeper creative difference, he said that Hope Valley 1874 keeps everything human. There are no supernatural abilities to imagine or inhabit. The challenges Clayton faces are entirely grounded in circumstance and choice, which in some ways requires more from an actor, not less. Both kinds of projects are fun to explore, he said, and he meant that genuinely. But there is something he clearly loves about a world where the drama lives entirely in what people do with what they have.
He Is Rooting for Clayton
One of the most likable things about the entire interview was how straightforwardly Jedidiah said he has high hopes for the guy. He is rooting for Clayton. Not in a self-promoting way, but in the way you root for a character you have spent real time with and genuinely want to see find his footing. Clayton has already found his community. Now he just has to figure out the rest.
Our Take
Seven minutes is not a lot of time, but Jedidiah Goodacre used every bit of it well. He is easy to talk to, unhurried, and clearly someone who has thought carefully about who Clayton is even when the scripts have not answered every question yet. The stray dog framing for Clayton’s backstory was one of the most quietly affecting things any cast member has said across all four of these junkets, and it came out of nowhere in the best possible way.
The Descendants connection was a genuine treat for Fantasy Land News specifically, and the Chad-meets-Clayton thought experiment was the kind of answer that earns a clip on its own. He handled the Disney question with exactly the right amount of fun and zero awkwardness about being asked it.
Brad Abramenko said in his own junket that he would switch roles with Clayton for a day without hesitation. After talking to Jedidiah, it is easy to understand why. Clayton is a rich, layered character in capable hands, and there is clearly a lot more story to tell. We are hoping for season two right alongside him.
Hope Valley 1874 is streaming now on Hallmark+, with new episodes dropping every Thursday.
Hallmark Star Jedidiah Goodacre Talked to Us About Hope Valley 1874
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