When you initially got the script and read that your biological dad was also living in Virgin River, what was going through your head?
I mean, it seems kind of goofy when you first think about it because you’re like, “Really, she has a dad in Virgin River?” I mean, of all the places, of all the towns and all the cities and all the world. It seemed odd and so we did put a little line in the beginning of the Christmas episode of Mel saying, “I don’t know, maybe I saw the postcard somewhere.” We tried to pepper a little bit of something in about that, because Sean and I had been talking about it and we’re like, “It is a little goofy, right?” … And I remember when they were coming up with the storyline and being like, “Is it too much?” I said, “Nah, it’s Virgin River. It’s all right, why not? It’s the Christmas episode. Sounds really cute.” Also, it would be nice for Mel to have family again. But the Christmas episodes are just so much lighter than the rest of the season and rightfully so, because it’s Christmas and we don’t want Debbie Downers during Christmas.
Jack and Mel have obviously been through a lot since the series began, not only together but also individually. What do you hope for the future of their relationship?
I think they’ve gotten to a really beautiful place in their relationship that is a very intimate friendship. They’re where I wanted them to be going in (laughs). They’re best friends and now at this point, they have been through so much together, and they’ve really weathered so many storms that it looks like they will be able to continue to weather storms because they have a very strong foundation. So moving ahead, with them starting a family and getting married, that’s also a lot. You’re like, “Oh, I want a baby,” and then you have one and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is so much work.” Everybody kind of told me, but then they didn’t really want to tell me and now I’m here and oh my goodness! So I feel that they have good days ahead of them and they’ll just continue to become a stronger couple as we move ahead and move forward. I’m excited to see their new house. The cabin was so cute, but really after five seasons of shooting there, I’m like, “OK, I’ve had enough (laughs).”
Five seasons in, what is your favorite thing about playing Mel?
Her strength. I think Mel is an extremely strong character. She’s very empathetic and she’s also very strong in her beliefs, and she won’t take a lot of crap (laughs). But I think her biggest superpower is being able to go into nurse mode in an emergency. And as we’ve seen this last season, she completely puts aside any of her personal things that she might be going through in order to help other people.
And hopefully, we’ll get to see more of that from Mel since she’s back working at the clinic.
She is back at the clinic and we’re starting a birthing center and I’m like, “How many little babies am I going to have to birth?” We’re going to see. It’s hard to do birthing scenes. They’re not easy. We get these little twins in, they’re covered in goop, some poor woman sitting here with her legs in stirrups, and you have to pretend to take the baby. Like it’s very weird (laughs). And whenever I see a birthing scene [in the script], I’m like, “Oh, no, another one (laughs).” But that’s her, she’s a midwife.
So would you say shooting Mel and Cameron’s [Mark Ghanimé] birthing scene with Kaia [Kandyse McClure] over FaceTime was easier?
No, actually, that was very difficult because we were acting with nobody. We were acting with no one and the director we had had, that was the first day we were working with him. And he was reading the other lines off camera and he was yelling at them at us, and he was telling the cameraman to go to pull this way and pull back around this way, and it was all very chaotic. I was like, this is very intense. It was more intense than taking a poor little infant covered in jelly out.
