Ep491 - Rick Garman, Screenwriter Hallmark Christmas Movie ‘Christmas on Cherry Lane’ by Creative Principles Podcast

Rick Garman moved to Los Angeles at the age of 18 to be an actor. “I got out as soon as I was sure my parents couldn’t send a sheriff to bring me back,” he jokes. “I went to acting school, worked a bunch of jobs, and landed at a theater company called The Colony Theater.”

“One of our cast members had just passed away from aids. They wanted to do a play about [the subject], but our audience was very conservative and there was nothing else out there. I sat down and said, I’ve been in plays, I’ve said plays, I can write a play, so I wrote a play.”

The production won some awards and got performed around the country. “Writing became my passion. I wrote all the time even though I wasn’t getting paid for it.” This led to some spec scripts and pilots as Garman climbed the corporate ladder.

“It was about finding the characters and the heart, which has become my hallmark for lack of a better word” he said of this ability to walk the line of tough subjects but appease all audiences. “It was less about the issues and more about the people. The way big events affect people on a personal level.”

“One of my favorite themes in writing is that people are walking around in their everyday life, thinking the world is one thing, and then something happens and their world shifts. The rug gets pulled out from under them and they have to look at life and the world around them in a very different way.”

He eventually sold a TV movie script to a channel called Pixel, which led to four more scripts, and then an opportunity to pitch to Hallmark. “In 2017, I quit my high-paying executive job in the internet world (places like Disney and Yahoo) and became a writer full time. I’ve written about 40 movies in the last seven years.”

In 2022 alone, Garman has credits for Groundswell, Christmas at the Drive-In, and A Christmas… Present. This year, he’s got credits for Notes of Autumn and the new film, Christmas on Cherry Lane.

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