Kimberley Sustad. Allister Foster/Hallmark Media
Kimberley Sustad is a Hallmark Channel guru, starring and writing projects for the network — but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get insecure about her talents.
While writing the script for 2024’s Three Wiser Men and a Boy, Sustad, 37, exclusively told Us Weekly she felt immense pressure to perform. (Sustad worked with star Paul Campbell on 2022’s Three Wise Men and a Baby and its sequel.)
“I have been worried for so long — talk about not feeling like you’re enough, you know, having imposter syndrome. That’s me writing these movies,” she confessed during Us’ visit to the Three Wiser Men set in Canada earlier this year. “I sort of fell into it and I hate being thrust into the limelight and Three Wise Men kind of did that.”
After Three Wise Men and a Baby became one of the network’s biggest holiday hits in 2022, Sustad said the imposter syndrome set it. “I’m like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, I’m not a profesh writer,’” she recalled.
The network and fans alike, however, weren’t buying it. “People are like, ‘You are! Write another,’” Sustad explained. “You are like, ‘Oh my God, what if I can’t?’ And then everyone will know.”
The actress — who made her writing debut for Hallmark with 2020’s Christmas By Starlight — compared the pressure to being a musician. “It’s like writing a hit album. And then they’re like, ‘So where’s the next song?’” she said. “I can’t imagine being that artist.”
Despite her reservations and “fear and panic” at the task to create a successful Three Wise Men sequel, Sustad told Us she thinks their team made a “better” movie than the first. In the first movie, the Brenner brothers work together to take care of a baby dropped at a fire station. In the follow-up the siblings — played by Tyler Hynes, Andrew Walker and Campbell — must coordinate the baby, now a little boy’s school holiday play.
In the original, Sustad made a cameo as a doctor. In the sequel, she briefly reprised her role — and broke the fourth wall — which fans are sure to have seen.
During the sequel, Sustad’s Dr. Maclaren attends the children’s play explaining that she’s a patron of the arts. “You know, I was a little worried because last year’s show was so good, it’s hard to follow up a hit with another hit, you know what I mean?!” Sustad’s character quips, poking fun at the hard process she and Campbell faced writing the second movie. After awkward laughs from everyone, Campbell’s Stephan replies, “Yeah tell me about it!!”
“We had a version of that at one point where [I] was a little more of an obstacle at the school, like, the principal or something like that. And then I just felt like it didn’t service [the story]. It was too distracting,” Sustad said of her sequel cameo. “The wink is what it needs and it’s what it’s always needed. So we retracted that and wrote it differently [and] made her just come in at the end.”
While cowriting Three Wiser Men propelled Sustad to Hallmark superstardom, she’s been part of the network since 2012. Two years later, she helmed her first rom-com for Hallmark with The Nine Lives of Christmas, which she told Us is the most accurate description of her real-life persona.
“Marilee is me,” she said, referring to the doctor she plays in 2014’s The Nine Lives of Christmas and 2021’s The Nine Kittens of Christmas. “That was my first introduction to Hallmark and I just brought myself to all of that.”
Sustad revealed that her character’s choice to buy a gallon of ice cream at the grocery store after having a hard day still resonates with her. “I didn’t know people didn’t really do comedy at that time in these movies, but I just was me,” she explained. “I bump over things. I’m klutzy. I don’t think I’m enough, all of that. The [I] want to crawl into a hole and die aspect about her.”
Sustad continued, “If you could do another one or [create] another character like [her] that would be great. Based upon characters that we’ve played like a Miss Congeniality or something. I feel like that person.”
Like Sandra Bullock’s Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality, Sustad is not a fan of being all gussied up. “I can’t wait to take off all [my] f—ing high heels. I can’t wear a skirt. I am just not that girl,” she teased.
Although Sustad isn’t set to reprise her role as Marilee just yet, fans will see her this holiday season in The Santa Class. The movie, which premieres on Saturday, December 14, also features a cameo from Campbell, who plays one of her Santa hopefuls.
In The Santa Class, Sustad plays Santa School owner Kate North, who works with instructor Dan (Benjamin Ayres) to help a Santa Claus named Nick (Trevor Lerner) with amnesia regain his memories while saving Christmas and her school.
As Sustad has continued to work for Hallmark, she realized how rewarding acting and writing can be — no matter what the story.
“I can’t decide which one I like better now especially when it’s what you envisioned,” she told Us. “I feel like that could be rare if you write for people you don’t know and just hand it off to a group. I really like the collective project making because we’re dealing with the producers and the director every day and working stuff out.”
The Santa Class premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, December 14, at 8 p.m. ET.
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