When Lacey Chabert and Kristoffer Polaha headed to Iceland in the spring of 2024 to film Hallmark Channel’s new holiday adventure “The Christmas Quest,” they experienced many awe-inspiring moments, including witnessing the Northern Lights. But the month-long shoot was no walk in the park for the Hallmark veterans.

Ahead of the movie’s premiere on December 1, 2024, Polaha told EntertainmentNOW that amid the “extraordinary beauty,” the physically demanding shoot required them to film in brutally cold temperatures and make a tricky climb to the top of a glacier.

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Kristoffer Polaha & Lacey Chabert Say They’ve ‘Never Been More Cold’

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In “The Christmas Quest,” Chabert plays an archaeologist trying to find the “legendary Treasure of the Yule Lads,” a collection of ancient Icelandic Father Christmas figures, but needs help from her ex-husband, played by Polaha, who’s an expert in ancient Norse languages.

At one point during the shoot, Polaha and Chabert needed to appear at the top of a glacier while a drone flew above to film them. Polaha told EntertainmentNOW that they had to hike 30 or 40 minutes to the foot of the glacier, and then hike another 45 minutes up the glacier with a guide.

At first, Polaha and Chabert both had their phones out, recording the beautiful views as they hiked — until Chabert lost her footing and fell. Her spill was all captured on her phone, which also landed on the ground.

Polaha said he “rushed over” to scoop her up, worried that she was hurt, but was relieved to find Chabert laughing. That was the moment, he told EntertainmentNOW, that their guide advised that using their phones while hiking up a glacier probably wasn’t the wisest idea, especially given multiple hidden dangers.

“There are these huge crevasses that you could fall into,” Polaha explained. “You can fall hundreds of feet and get stuck. There’s also quicksand on glaciers — places where you think it’s solid, but you step into it … and you can literally drown in sand and rock and ice and water. So it’s not child’s play.”

The other physically demanding aspect of filming “The Christmas Quest” was how windy and cold it was during some of their outdoor scenes.

“I’ve never been more cold while filming,” Polaha told EntertainmentNOW. “You sit there, you’re trying to talk in (character) but your face is, like, frozen. Your eyes freeze up.”

Chabert told Dish Studio that it was likely the “coldest I’ve ever been in my entire life” and shared with Swoon, “By about the third day of filming, we discovered that I needed more layers, and they actually got me this heated vest that I could wear under my jacket. I had three or four different shirts on, multiple pairs of pants, and the heated jacket underneath my puffer jacket. But every day, I looked around and I was like, ‘This is so surreal. I can’t believe that I get to make a movie in this incredible place.'”

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Kristoffer Polaha Calls Iceland the ‘Wildest Place’ He’s Ever Been

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Despite the challenges, Polaha told EntertainmentNOW that the time he spent filming “The Christmas Quest” in Iceland was a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience filled with beautiful moments in nature.

The night before their trek to the top of the glacier, he said they stayed at a quaint farmhouse-turned-inn with hot spring hot tubs where he felt almost overwhelmed by the beauty of the environment.

“By myself, I went out in the middle of the night and just soaked in one of these hot tubs,” he said, “and I was looking up, and there was this glimmer of the Northern Lights above me. And it was the strangest thing, because it wasn’t like the whole sky — there was just this little ribbon of shimmering light above me, and I was like, ‘This is the wildest place I’ve ever been to.’ Deep off in the distance was a waterfall. These waterfalls just shoot off these bluffs. It’s just extraordinary beauty.”

Both Polaha and Chabert’s families visited for a week over the Easter holiday, and on his son Micah’s 18th birthday, they got to see a brilliant display of the Northern Lights and go adventuring, which he posted a montage of photos and videos from on Instagram.

“We went hiking on another glacier for his birthday, and in an ice cave, spelunking,” Polaha said, noting how grateful he is to film projects for Hallmark where his family — wife Julianne and their three sons — can easily tag along and be part of the experience.

“The Christmas Quest” premieres on December 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern time, with multiple re-airings scheduled on Hallmark Channel through the end of the month.