With “The Chicken Sisters” returning for a second season on Hallmark Channel on August 10, 2025, Hollywood icon Lea Thompson won’t only be credited as one of the stars, but also as the director. The “Back to the Future” alum directed the first two episodes of the season while reprising her role as small-town restaurant owner Nancy Hillier.
Talking to EntertainmentNow ahead of the season premiere, Thompson celebrated that the “wonderful” cast — including Wendie Malick, Schuyler Fisk, and Genevieve Angelson — created a season in which their characters’ evolving relationships and personal growth feel “genuine and intimate.”
“It’s actually really hard to create that kind of environment in this world,” she said. “It’s kind of easier to, in film and TV, to be like, you know, cynical, not care … and to create a show like this is actually really, really hard, and I think we did a really good job.”
This Isn’t Lea Thompson’s First Time Directing for Hallmark Channel
Thompson told EntertainmentNow that directing the first two episodes of the new season felt like “a double investment of my heart and soul.”
Juggling both roles can feel “a little psychotic,” she laughed, adding, “The hardest part is that you don’t give enough time to yourself. You don’t give enough care to yourself. But I started doing that on the Hallmark Channel, actually, when I directed the Jane Doe movies like 20 years ago.”
Thompson starred in nine “Jane Doe Mysteries” movies on Hallmark Channel from 2005 to 2008, playing a suburban mom and former secret agent who gets lured back into secretly solving crimes for a government agency. She directed two of the movies — “The Harder They Fall” and “Eye of the Beholder.”
Although directing “adds another layer” of complexity, Thompson told EntertainmentNow that the cast and crew delivered a season that’s like “this lovely, delicious little souffle.”
“You know, these characters and the people, they live in your heart forever,” Thompson said. “It sounds really dumb, but you know, having acted for so long, the characters are still alive with me. And we did really bond together, and we do. We did really love each other.”
Lea Thompson Loved Being Able to Help ‘Set a New Tone’ for New Season of ‘The Chicken Sisters’
The first season of “The Chicken Sisters,” now streaming on Hallmark+, was based on a novel of the same name by K.J. Dell’Antonia.
The storyline centered around a “generations-old feud” between two family-run chicken restaurants that had divided the small town of Merinac for years. The drama only escalated when a reality TV show crew arrived to pit the restaurants against each other, with surprising results for everyone involved — including a chance to create something even better together.
With the original storyline wrapped up, screenwriter Erin Gibson took over as showrunner for season two, taking the series “beyond the pages of the book,” per Hallmark press materials.
“I was really happy to be part of that, and to kind of set a new tone,” Thompson told EntertainmentNow. “There’s a lot of big things that happen in this second season.”
“I think that all the characters grow and change,” Thompson continued. “And there’s surprising characters that show up, and then there’s surprising things that happen, that I feel like the company did really, really, really beautifully. I think you get to know the town and the characters in the town better.”
Although Thompson said she’d love for people who didn’t see the first season to binge-watch it on Hallmark+, she noted that they can also watch Hallmark’s 90-second recap (above) and easily dive into the latest adventures of “The Chicken Sisters.”
Season two premieres on August 10 at 8 p.m. Eastern time, with each episode available to stream on Hallmark+ the following day.
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Why Lea Thompson Says Making a Show Like ‘The Chicken Sisters’ is ‘Actually Really, Really Hard’ (EXCLUSIVE)