Lea Thompson, Schuyler Fisk, Wendie Malick, and Genevieve Angelson Talk Family Bonds and Fried Chicken Rivalry In The Chicken Sisters

This new Hallmark+ series will have your stomach grumbling as feuding fried chicken restaurants stir up drama and secrets while participating in a reality competition show. Based on the best-selling book by KJ Dell’Antonia, Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with Lea Thompson, Schuyler Fisk, Wendie Malick, and Genevieve Angelson about The Chicken Sisters.

Genevieve Angelson plays Mae, who left her small town for a glamorous life in the big city, but she still fears people will find out who she really is and reject her. “Everyone has a different relationship to vulnerability, but, I mean, it's called that for a reason. It feels like you're going die when there's a thing that you want to be protected and hidden and not have it come out. My character very relatably embodies masking the thing that you think is going to make all the love go away if people find out about it,” she told me. “I think that everybody has a part of them where we all think, ‘Oh, if anybody finds out what I'm really like, maybe they won't like me anymore.’ In my case, I am actually playing a bonafide impostor, so it's not just a syndrome. It's a whole identity.”

Meanwhile Schuyler Fisk is Amanda, the daughter who stayed, but who can’t seem to connect to her prickly mother Gus (Wendie Malick), and finds comfort in her mother-in-law Nancy (Lea Thompson). “[Gus] lost her mother and I think fills her life up with stuff rather than with other people. Having her two daughters and trying to raise them alone, she just didn't quite have the skills to do that well. She didn't have the nurturing skills and so she ended up being distracted by just holding on to the safety of things around her and became a hoarder and drove her daughters away,” Malick explained. “This is all about that long road to coming back to, trying to heal the wounds of generational trauma, but done with a lot of comedy.”

A big divide comes from their rivaling family chicken restaurants Mimi’s and Frannie’s, which put archetypes on what it means to be a woman in the fictional town of Merinac. “You have to be really careful about the labels you attach to people, particularly as they're coming of age,” said Malick. “It starts to be something that it's really hard to take it off, especially in a small town where everybody knows everyone's business.”

Lea Thompson resonated with her character Nancy’s exploration of what it means to find yourself as a woman, even later in life. “We're like a lot of women where we put everybody else first and forget about taking care of ourselves. For my character, I was always the woman behind the man and my husband died so I have to figure out how I can navigate the world running this restaurant and navigating this crazy thing of a reality show coming into our town and messing things up,” she said. “My character does grow during the season and gets more confident. It really was fun to explore because it's something I'm always exploring myself as a wife and a mother and a working person.”

“It does tap into those traditional gender roles and how you can be so much more than than just one thing,” explained Fisk. “With Gus and Nancy, they are many things, including business owners and mothers and community pillars and friends and so many things. It’s a really nice look at a fully formed women.”

Meanwhile, with both of their families in the entertainment industry, Fisk and Thompson were no strangers to working with family like their characters in The Chicken Sisters. “That's funny. I never put that correlation together. My daughters are both actors, my husband’s a director. We have all worked together in different capacities so there is a definite pressure on working together in a pressurized situation,” said Thompson. “I probably did draw on that.”

“My family is also in the business and we have collaborated on screen and off. We're always involved in what the other person's doing. We share projects and we get advice. It’s a really lovely back and forth. We're very close and I think that closeness, that trust, and that bond is something that I definitely brought, especially the relationship with mama Nancy with Lea's character,” expressed Fisk. “They're very close, they're very in sync. They have a short hand with each other. That's really familiar to me in my own life and it was really nice.”

The Chicken Sisters really pushes the barriers when it comes to what we’ve seen on Hallmark before. “That's what I love about it. I was so thrilled when I first heard about this project and then that it was going to be on Hallmark. I said, ‘But are they going to really let you tell this story?’ Because it's not all sweetness and light and happy happy. I mean, it does go to some darker places, but they said, no, they are supporting us and they're letting us tell the story we want to tell,” said Malick. “I think the result is a much richer and more layered and more engaging story. It really is the saga of these feuding families and how they get through their stuff. First apart and then coming together.”

“It's very satisfying to see how this unfolds. I think they do a really nice job of exactly that. Pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries a little bit, but really staying within what you know and love about Hallmark. It feels like a safe, wonderful place to land. It's fun, it's funny,” Fisk shared. “It's filled with family and community, but I think that people are going to be surprised in a really good way with this show because I do think it pushes some boundaries and really taps into some some real issues that people are going to really identify with. I'm really proud to be part of this.”

Their favorite scenes to film? “Anytime that the four lead actors got to work together in a group scene was an absolute gift and we really never took it for granted,” said Angelson. “We would look around and be like, ‘You're here, you're here, you're here!’ because got along so well. We spent a ton of time together outside of work.”

“Our scenes felt really rooted in some real stuff and really fun. I feel like [Lea’s] character is someone that Amanda really looks up to and idolizes and wants to be like,” said Fisk. “I definitely felt that in my own life with Lea.”

The Chicken Sisters is streaming on Hallmark+, with new episodes dropping every Thursday.