Riley Weston, the writer-actress who generated an extraordinary amount of attention in the late ’90s for failing to disclose her true age while working for Felicity, has quietly found another way to enjoy success in TV: penning feel-good movies.
Her latest creation is Apples, Orchards & Romance, a new confection for Great American Family that stars Trevor Donovan (Jingle Bell Princess, “90210”) and Jessica Lowndes (I’m Glad It’s Christmas, Harmony from the Heart, “90210”).
The movie, which will air as part of the net’s annual Great American Autumn programming event that returns this September, follows teacher Drew Granger (Donovan) who accepts a temporary substitute job in his old hometown of Chestnut Hollow, Texas, where he meets Aiden, the proverbial new kid at school, desperate for a caring friend. While he would rather have taken a job anywhere else, Drew reconsiders Chestnut Hollow when he meets Lainie Abbott (Lowndes), the new manager of his parents’ massive apple orchard and cider mill business, and more importantly, Aiden’s mom. Production commences this week.
Weston wrote the screenplay (before the WGA strike) for Apples — one of many she’s penned since leaving Felicity in 1998. Her other titles include a collection of breezy movies for Hallmark such as Good Morning Christmas!, Always and Forever, and The Nanny Express.
“I love writing these rom-coms so much for a few reasons,” says Weston to Deadline. “First, I’m a diehard romantic who is still waiting for her own fairytale! Second, I love bringing joy to people, whether it’s through movies or music. My hope is that a movie like this can take people out of their work week for two hours and give them a little getaway from reality. They always make me feel hopeful and I try to get that feeling spread to the viewers. It’s also so awesome when I get to write a movie for friends. Trevor and I have wanted to work on something for a while now and this was the perfect project.”
Weston burst onto the scene in the late ’90s as a “wunderkind” teenage staff writer for Felicity — until it was discovered that she lied about her real age to find acting jobs (the petite actor/scribe was many years older). It was a rather trite offense, in retrospect, given the subsequent #MeToo era, but many executives and agents who promoted her so-called youth were left with egg on their faces.
“It’s been an accepted practice for actresses to lie about their age, especially in instances where they are always asked to play younger,” Weston said at the time. “I adopted an age appropriate for my physical appearance, never imagining I would one day become a writer. I could not be one age in the acting world and another in the writing world, so I chose to maintain the ruse. In a business fraught with age bias, I did what I felt I had to do to succeed.”
Weston left Felicity in the middle of the first season because her contract had expired, explained co-creator Matt Reeves during a 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly(which was one of the first publications to play up Riley’s “wunderkind” status). Before she left, Reeves gave Weston a role as a teenager in one episode.
“People thought that we let her go because of it. None of that was true at all,” Reeves recalled to EW. “The story was blown so crazy out of proportion from the perspective of our relationship with Riley. We did discover that she was not telling us the truth, but it was after she had already finished her term. When you sign somebody on as a staff writer in those days, you had a number of scripts that you signed them to do. We just put her on the show because we thought, ‘well, let’s just let her do what we know she really wants to do as well, which is to be an actor.’ It got turned into a scandal that I’m not sure ever was. We liked her writing. That’s all.”
Weston has since settled in Tennessee where she writes and performs country songs — often at the famed Bluebird Café in Nashville. She’s garnered a dedicated following for her music and even wrote a song for Apples, Orchards & Romance.
“I’ve got a couple of great shows in July at The Bluebird Café and a few other venues,” she tells Deadline. “I’m so excited to also be working on my first Christmas album. There are a few new Christmas songs of mine that I am adapting into movies as well. Fingers crossed that I will be combining my acting, writing and music all together in a movie soon!”
Apples, Orchards & Romance is executive produced by Brad Krevoy, Amy Krell, Jimmy Townsend, Lorenzo Nardini, Cara J. Russell, Trevor Donovan, Kelly Martin, Susie Belzberg Krevoy, Don McCutcheon, and Jessica Lowndes. David Anselmo produces. Supervising producers are James Mou and W. Michael Beard. Associate Producer is Victor St. Pierre. Don McCutcheon directs.
Apples, Orchards & Romance is the first of two new Great American Family films starring Donovan, who will also star in the upcoming holiday original movie, Christmas by Chance. In addition to his acting career, Donovan is also a children’s author who is currently collaborating with middle school students participating in his anti-bullying initiative, Team Upstanders, to write and animate the fourth book in his Love Always series. All proceeds from the book will be donated to Team Upstanders, which is dedicated to creating a support system for students based on treating others with empathy, kindness and respect.
via Deadline