In 2021, America’s iconic TV family The Waltons returned with a brand new made-for-TV film, The Waltons: Homecoming. This year they’re doing it again in a brand new holiday special, A Walton’s Thanksgiving, which airs Sunday night on The CW. Ahead of the movie’s premiere, PopCulture.com had a chance to talk about the “pretty big” movie — as well Turkey Day traditions — with actors Teddy Sears and Logan Shroyer, who play Walton’s patriarch John Sr. and his son John Boy, respectively.
Giving us a brief synopsis of the movie, Shroyer explained, “The Walton’s are in 1934, and they find themselves in Thanksgiving time going to the Harvest Festival, which is a great time to do it every year. And so John Boy, particularly, has girl problems in this one, so that’s an interesting development. And everybody’s got their own little mischief that they get into. Grandma and grandpa have a fun plot line, and there’s a big thing that happens at the Harvest Festival that may possibly change the Walton family forever.” He then teased, “I won’t say what it is. I can’t tell you what it is, but yeah, it’s pretty big. It’s pretty big stuff.”
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This is Sears’ first time joining The Waltons cast — John Sr. was portrayed by actor Ben Lawson in The Waltons: Homecoming — and the franchise newcomer says it was. a “great” experience. He added, “I was a little nervous because almost like probably joining a new, I don’t know, school mid-semester or something, everyone knows each other and I was a little bit like, ‘Do these guys like me?’ Shroyer then quipped, “The hazing was brutal, but you know, you have to.”
Sears replied, “Oh boy. I got through it. I made it. Here we are. Now all my chin hair is white. It was great.” He continued, “I was welcomed warmly with open arms to the family. These kids are just, they’re just a dream. And there was a lot of this sort of, we tease and we play with each other offscreen, a lot of banter. And our wonderful director, Joe Lazarov brought that to the screen. He sort of wanted us to have those… freewheeling interactions, those little improv moments. And a lot of these things made… we saw the movie last night for the first time, a lot of those things made the film.
He went on to say that he feels “it’s these little things that make a family,” adding, “How one talks to one another, how one looks at one another, the teasing and whatever. So we hope that those little things uplift the whole sort of authenticity of the family, and that the families watching at home can see a lot of themselves in the Waltons, even though it’s 1934. What we’re dealing with, how we approach problems, things like that we think are very applicable to today. And then the Thanksgiving message of slowing down, being grateful, spending time with the ones you love. Giving love, when you have it, to not only your family, but those in need we think is essential essence to the film.”
Sears also admitted that the cast would love to continue the Walton family story, saying, “We like each other so much, and we’re greedy. We want to do more. We want to see each other more. We want to do more of these. And we’ve been hearing a lot of that from people who’ve seen this movie and the one before is, my central criticism is, ‘I just want more. I want to see you guys more often.’”
Teasing how a whole new Waltons show could be created, Sears said, “If it were a series you could, it’s what, six or seven kids or whatever, so they could have their own… It’s hard to see everyone in a movie and have their own sort of thing. So we would love to be able to do well in this film and hopefully people like it and people to see more Waltons.”
Hearkening back to the movie’s timeperiod, we asked Shroyer what he liked most about getting to work in a setting from a bygone era. “I actually really enjoy the accent,” he confessed. “I enjoy living in it, for whatever reason, it’s just kind of fun, and maybe I just talk a little more slick when I’ve got a southern accent. I have a lot of fun with that.”
He continued, “I mean it was a much simpler time. It was a time when people moved a lot slower. People were a lot closer. I mean, they’re all in this house together, and John Boy’s got responsibilities to help take care of the kids… There’s something really nice about the family getting together for breakfast and dinner, and the reflecting on that world of the great depression, and the difficulties that they’re facing. But, how they didn’t let that tear them apart and getting together. I mean, there’s a lot to glean from the Waltons, and the more time that I spend in this world, the more I get from it.”
Finally, we asked the actors about their own personal holiday traditions, and Sears revealed that his family has a very unique Thanksgiving custom. “I grew up in the Washington D.C. area and we used to gather the family for a long Thanksgiving walk, almost like, I don’t know,” he then joked, “it was probably just to get us all out… We’d get out of the house… We walked a couple miles along the C&O Canal, and then we’d get together for a late afternoon dinner, around a really, really big table at my grandparents’ house.”
While his family has changed over the years, Sears says they hold to their special observance of the holiday. “As people have scattered, the grandparents passed on, and everyone’s sort of in different parts of the country we’ve at least carried on the tradition of continuing to gather around the table, eat as much as we can, probably way too much.”
He also revealed his favorite Thanksgiving food, confessing, “To me it was and still is always about the stuffing. So that’s sort of a big part of Thanksgiving for me.” He added, “But Thanksgiving’s nothing without family for me. And family is not just those you’re related to, it’s those who you make your family. And so around the table now that I’m no longer where I was where I grew up, it continues to be sort of half family and half the orphan friends who have nowhere else to go. Those we love, we continue to give love to. That’s sort of our thing year in and year out.”
As for Shroyer, he says that “getting together with the family” is traditional for his family, but adds that his “family’s got some good recipes” including “a corn souffle recipe” which is “adjacent to cornbread” and sounds fantastic. “I promise you, it’s incredible,” he said. “My mom has to make two pans of it because we eat all of it.”
Lastly, he also divulged that his “mom has maybe four or five pie recipes” with the most in-demand on Thanksgiving being “a chocolate pecan pie.” He added, “She makes a chocolate mousse pie? But I don’t know. It’s mostly just chocolate. Maybe it’s just a chocolate pie, but it’s shocking how good it is… And she makes homemade whipped cream with it as well, like properly.” A Waltons Thanksgiving airs at 8 pm ET, on The CW.
