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Okanagan stars in Hallmark Christmas movie airing tonight

Harrison Coe is featured in Fixing Up Christmas, a film that was shot in Kelowna earlier this year
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Vernon actor Harrison Co is featured in the Hallmark Christmas movie Fixing Up Christmas, which airs on CityTV at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, 2021. (IMDB photo)

Vernon actor and electrician Harrison Coe can be seen in a Hallmark Christmas movie that airs tonight.

Coe was was cast in Fixing Up Christmas, a holiday love story that was filmed in Kelowna by Reelone Entertainment earlier this year. The film airs on CityTV at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10.

In the film, Coe plays the owner of an architecture firm who comes up with the idea to throw a Christmas party to help the firm land a big deal. He hires an event planner who bumps into his son, the male lead, in a coffee shop, “and sparks fly.”

It’s far from Coe’s first TV or movie role, but it’s the first major role since he decided to revive his acting career early this year.

Born in Vernon, Coe’s family moved to Calgary when he was three. Later in life he moved to Vancouver having caught the acting bug in high school, and there he started building his acting resume, appearing in Stargate-SG1, The Outer Limits and four episodes of the X-Files, to name a few of his bigger roles.

Coe later moved to Toronto, met his wife who was also from Vernon, had a kid and wound up getting out of acting.

“Things sort of didn’t work out that great over the years,” he said of his acting days in Toronto. “I thought, I’ve got to bring in a good pay cheque and figured everyone says to go into the trades, so at 43 I picked up everything and changed my whole life.”

Coe brought his family back to Vernon and began working as an electrician. He still took part in community theatre at Powerhouse Theatre and O’Keefe Ranch, but with a family and a new career with Capra Electric, his professional acting days appeared to be pulled off stage.

It was Matt Brown at the Powerhouse Theatre who convinced Coe to give acting another go.

“He kind of talked me into throwing my hat back into the ring, so I gave it a shot and just started landing things pretty much right away,” Coe said.

Fixing Up Christmas was shot in March this year. Two months later Coe shot another Hallmark movie and then another one four months after that. Right now he’s shooting a CBC mini series called Bones of Crows, and he’ll be shooting a third Hallmark movie next week.

Between the many acting gigs and his electrical work, it’s been a busy year.

“It feels a bit surreal being an electrician and being an actor at the same time, and very surprising,” he said. “I’ve worked more (acting jobs) this year than I did in about four years in Toronto, so it’s just astounding.”

The Okanagan film scene has grown dramatically since Coe’s first stint as an actor, and he says the region’s diverse landscape makes it a viable shooting location for a wide variety of productions.

“The Okanagan presents a really diverse landscape to shoot in. I know there was another movie that shot here and it was supposed to be the ocean, but they used the lakes instead.”

The full list of Coe’s acting roles can be found on IMDB.

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Brendan Shykora
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Brendan Shykora

About the Author: Brendan Shykora

I started as a carrier at the age of 8. In 2019 graduated from the Master of Journalism program at Carleton University.
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