Lacey Chabert Has Put On Her Dancing Shoes Again In “The Dancing Detective”

Lacey Chabert and Will Kemp are dance partners once again and this time they are solving a crime. The Dancing Detective will see the pair reunite once again on screen and on the dance floor. We last saw Chabert and Kemp in step together in Hallmark’s Christmas Waltz in 2020, and the Mississippi native told Southern Living just how happy she was to work with the English actor again on this project. “This is a project that Will Kemp had developed with our wonderful writer Aubrey Day and he brought it to me and asked if I wanted to be a part of it and I knew I did after reading just a few acts of it.”

The story centers around Detective Constance Bailey, a no-nonsense, do it all yourself type as she is assigned to help Interpool on a case that will take her far out of her comfort zone, all the way to Malta. The CEO of an international ballroom dance company is murdered on the eve of a competition in which employees of the company, Aston International, are asked to compete themselves. Bailey lands in Malta to find out that she not only has to go undercover, but she will have to dance her way to solving the case too. She’s partnered with a professional dance instructor and actor, Sebastian, played by Kemp. “Honestly, it took me by surprise how funny it was. I loved that these characters were so different. And it’s a little more rare that I get to play the more serious, straight laced person in the story. And I get to be the detective which I’ve never gotten to do before,” Chabert said. 

Sebastian has to get Bailey up to speed quickly so what we as viewers get is some sort of magical, hysterical mash up of slapstick comedy and Dancing With the Stars and it’s great. Chabert actually told us although she’s never competed, she’s a huge fan of DWTS, so your move, ABC. 

To get those dance scenes just right, another familiar face joined the crew on location. “I still find the dancing very intimidating to be honest. But we have a wonderful choreographer who was with us on Christmas Waltz and he joined us again on this. Jean-Marc Généreux and he is such a fun person to be around. He has this really amazing ability to make you believe in yourself and to believe that you can do it. Which I think makes him an exceptional teacher. And so we had a great time learning the tango and the fox trot. But it’s very complicated.”

She continued,  “You learn these routines and then all the sudden you’re on set. You feel pretty secure about it and then you have to add in the dialogue and blocking for your characters and you’re counting steps while you’re remembering lines and looking around and acting out a scene and trying to do all of the technical things we have to do as actors. So it was quite a challenge but man we had a lot of fun doing it. A lot of laughs. And I hope we have a chance to do it again.”

While so far the movie is billed as a one-off, the ending does leave hope that it could become a series, something Chabert would welcome. “I love doing the mysteries because they’re just a little bit different and Crossword Mysteries is something I enjoyed and just adore working with Brennan and I think we have some fun stuff coming up very soon. But this one is a bit different in that it’s a little bit more of an adventure and there is a lot more comedy…But every film that I’ve had the chance to make with Hallmark has been important to me and special for different reasons. My goal is to make each one better than the last and I appreciate that the audience continues to tune in and I hope to keep everyone entertained.”

The Dancing Detective premieres on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on June 2.