'Pretty Little Liars' star Janel Parrish on possible reunion and new Hallmark role
It’s been 15 years since “Pretty Little Liars” debuted with its twisty mystery, and fans still can’t get enough.
Neither can Janel Parrish, who played Mona on the show.
When asked if there was hope for any kind of reunion or reboot, Janel told us, “I think we would all be down for that possibility. And we have talked about how much we would love that, so we’ll see, I guess.”
In the meantime, Janel is starring alongside Parker Young in “Christmas On Duty,” one of several new films in Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas for the month of November.
Janel and Parker play bitter rivals Blair and Josh who have disliked each other ever since they trained together at The Basic School in Quantico to become Marines. After graduation, Blair lands Josh’s dream job and they stop speaking for years until their paths cross at a party on base and they cause a scene. As punishment, they’re stuck working Christmas Duty, and have to team up to deliver presents through a snowstorm to make children happy and save Christmas.
“We're really lucky. We both do have our loved ones that are in the service, as well as one of our producers, Ryan, he was in the Marines for a few years, and was kind of there to to help and consult and come over and, you know, make sure we knew the rules and our outfits were the way they should be,” Janel said of playing a member of the military. "We really wanted to make sure that we represented it in the best way possible.”
Parker who also has friends and family in the military, added, “the last thing I need is for them to be making fun of me for representing them poorly. So yeah,I feel super blessed to have such incredible service members in my in my close immediate circle. And to be honest, I don't feel like it would, it would ever, I don't know that it would be my story to tell if, if I didn't have those relationships.”
“Christmas on Duty” filmed in Utah, where Hawaii-born and raised Janel got to revel in the wintry weather.
“There was real snow, which was so magical!” she exclaimed. “I'm from Hawaii, so anytime I get to see snow, I'm like, oh my god, this is the best thing ever!”
She added, “Every single day, I just felt so lucky that we got to film this really joyful, wonderful Christmas film in the most beautiful setting.”
Parker also fell in love with Utah, saying that as an “outdoorsy person,” who really vibed with the state.
But the stars stumbled across a different natural wonder in the state: the world’s biggest Hallmark fan.
Parker explained that one of the houses they hired for filming was owned by a woman who had “like a trunk full of old DVDsI don’t even think they were DVDS, they were probably like VHSs or you know, like tapes that she had recorded Hallmark on from the beginning of time. And she was just could not believe that that her house got randomly picked to be the house.”
The homeowner was also just an all around nice person because, as Janel revealed, “She made us cookies! She made everybody cookies!”
“So that shows you the level that the type of people in Utah Hallmark fans, and if they're, if you're a hallmark fan, you're a fantastic person, obviously.”
If you’re a Hallmark fan and a fantastic person, you can watch “Christmas on Duty” November 1st on Hallmark Channel.



