Alison Sweeney Admits to Making Every Actor Eat on Her Mystery Movie Sets

For the last decade, Alison Sweeney has played bakery owner and amateur detective Hannah Swensen in Hallmark’s popular “Hannah Swensen Mysteries” franchise. The premiere of “Reality Bites” on February 6, 2025, marked her 11th movie in the series, per Soaps.

While Hallmark has experimented with many different scenarios and storylines over the years, including introducing Victor Webster as a new character in 2024 after longtime co-star Cameron Mathison left the network, there’s one thing Sweeney told CinemaBlend she’s not flexible on as the franchise’s star and executive producer.

“I am really firm with everybody that you cannot fake eat,” Sweeney revealed.

Alison Sweeney Says Food Rule Is Part of Her ‘Old-School, Tough Producer’ Style

Naturally, every “Hannah Swensen” movie includes scenes in the fictional Cooke Jar Bakery, which are filmed inside a real bakery — Gratia Bakery & Café in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, according to Moviedelic. And as characters nibble on pastries and more, Sweeney doesn’t want to see anybody pretending to eat.

“I am sort of a hard, old-school, tough producer in that way,” she told CinemaBlend. “I say to people, ‘No, you cannot just eat, like, half a bite of a lettuce leaf. You have to eat. You’re gonna do it. Eat. Take a real bite, and we will figure out how to edit around it.'”

Sweeney acknowledged that catching an actor mid-bite might not be the most appetizing shot, but said, “I would rather go for it and have to fix it after than do the cheesy not-eating eating thing. And also it’s a show about cookies and baking, right?”

The no-fake-eating rule is well known among “Hannah Swensen” regulars, but Sweeney told CinemaBlend that even “guest stars are all forewarned” that they will be required to eat on camera.

Food Prep is Serious Business on ‘Hannah Swensen’ Sets, Especially After Cameron Mathison’s Health Hiccup

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For Mathison, who played Detective Mike Kingston in the “Hannah Swensen Mysteries” for many years, eating on the set led to him being diagnosed with celiac disease. For people with the autoimmune condition, digesting gluten — a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley — can damage the small intestine and cause a whole host of other issues, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation.

In 2023, Mathison told TV Fanatic that while filming the sixth movie in the series, “Sweet Revenge,” his glucose levels — which he was monitoring due to his 2019 battle with kidney cancer — skyrocketed to “beyond hyper-diabetic.”

“I’ve got a real serious gluten sensitivity, and it’s such a pain and so ironic,” he told the outlet. “However, Mike isn’t (sensitive to gluten). If you watch some of the movies, I’m inhaling the brownies or the chocolate and cookies. And I really feel like it would be weird for the audience to watch Hannah’s fiancé take a little nibble of her yummy baked goods when it’s such a big part of this series of movies.”

Mathison said that the crew had been “very accommodating,” doing their best to get gluten-free baked goods on the set. And Swensen told Cinema Blend that much planning goes into the sweet treats that actors have to eat in scene after scene.

“We provide gluten-free stuff if needed or if they have allergies,” she said, “but we’re like, ‘No, you’re really eating in this scene, and you’re really taking a big bite in every take, and we’ll help you however we can, but that really needs to happen.'”

Another consideration, she said, is making sure the prop department creates “the right kind of cookies that people can eat. You can’t have snap, crunchy cookies that are loud and weird. A lot of thought goes into this.”

The newest movie in the franchise, “Sweet Revenge: A Hannah Swensen Mystery” airs next on February 22 at 6 p.m. Eastern time and March 2 at 8 p.m. Eastern time. It’s also available to stream via Hallmark+.