Written By: Jayme Face

Paul Greene stars as Dr. Carson Shepherd in “When Calls the Heart” on Hallmark. The new season premieres Sunday, February 24th.  He has a new album and parenting book coming out and we caught up with him about all of it!

upfrontNY: Can you tell us about the Hallmark series “When Calls the Heart” and what we can expect in the upcoming season?

Paul Greene: The books were written by a woman, Janette Oke, that actually went to school in the town that my grandmother and my grandfather were from so I grew up very close to it. It’s really funny that they actually met each other in like 1915 or something and when I met her she actually remembered. I first heard of the show when my girlfriend and my mom were watching it and it was so different. It was set in 1911 and then they told me a little about it and I got addicted with them. I started watching episode after episode and I was like “What is this show?!” It turns out Michael Landon Jr created “When Calls the Heart” with Janette Oke. Now, I grew up watching “Highway to Heaven” and reruns of “Bonanza” with his father Michael Landon. There was all this synchronicity especially when I found out and met Jeanette that she knew my grandmother and grandfather by name. I met her at one of these Hearties Conventions, which is 500 friends meeting in Vancouver and we have something like a Comic Con for Heartie fans.

The show is very family oriented and at the end of every episode there’s a lesson. It’s like a utopian world that is the antidote for the news. The news makes you feel a certain way this will make you feel the opposite, which is why it’s so popular. We had 5.8 million people watch our Christmas special on Christmas day this year. Those are really big numbers and we are going into season 7.

This season is coming off the heels of a very dramatic finale where one of the main characters was killed. What they can expect from this season is the same feeling of community and family that they love, but also some new characters, new romances, a new antagonist, and the telephone comes to town. There’s a discovery that almost turns the town against each other for a minute and they almost lose their way. There is lots of adventure, lots of love and they get to see this little baby grow up that was born on the Christmas episode and was conceived at the end of last season. So, there’s a piece of Jack; a piece of him lives on in the show and the fans will just love it. It’s a great season.

 

upfrontNY: What’s the most interesting part about working on a period piece?

Paul Greene:  I would say the costumes; our costume department is great. That and I would say the research because I play a doctor. During the research, I found out what was available to heal people. The costume department is incredible and the town that we get to work in. Our set tech team is just unbelievable. Every day I get to be transported into another time. It’s really neat. That part is just super cool. I love that and just getting to work on something that’s so different. It’s nice to have that variety.

upfrontNY: Were you a fan of the books before getting the role or was it new to you?

Paul Greene: All my family had seen or read them. Janette had actually gone into some of my aunts’ and uncles’ homes for a Christian women’s book club. The books aren’t Christian books, but they’re family friendly books and I think they pray in them. I watched some of the seasons. I don’t come on until season 4 and now we’re getting ready for season 7. I was very familiar with it because my mom, my partner, and my family. It’s nice to be on a show my whole family can watch.  I was on a show called “Bitten”, a werewolf/ vampire show. I didn’t want my family reporting back to me that they watched that one, but funny enough, that’s what got me into the Hallmark world and into this family friendly show.

 

upfrontNY: What’s the best part about being the Hallmark King?

Paul Greene: Hahaha It’s pretty sweet!

 

upfrontNY: You originally started out as a model what made you want to move to L.A. and become an actor?

Paul Greene:  I wanted to be an actor first. I was in acting school when the modeling thing happened to me actually. I grew up on a small farm and I saw “Bloodsport” with Jean-Claude Van Damme like 1986 and I saw “Purple Rain” with Prince at the same time. I fell in love with music. I fell in love with martial arts and I stopped eating sugar and started training in martial arts. I was working out like a maniac because I wanted to have a body like Jean- Claude Van Damme. I kept waking up in the morning on the farm in a dream that I was on movie sets. They would yell cut and I would wake up. It was crazy. I had to figure out why I was dreaming that. I put myself in school the day I got my car, when I turned 16 years old, in Edmonton which was the nearest town in northern Canada. I loved it and was in church plays.

Then in college, someone found me in a bar dancing and introduced me to their agent and the next morning I was shooting pictures and sent off to Toronto. I booked a Levi’s national campaign. Fortunately, when I started that, I met a girl who bought me a guitar and a Bible and I became like a monk. I was never partying, no alcohol, no drugs. I was investing my money buying real estate, learning how to cook, got my pilot’s license and my motorcycle license; I learned to speak different languages.

I was working a lot. I was very busy, and I was taking acting classes in New York knowing I would eventually act again. I knew I had to leave New York, but how could I turn down all that money and go for a pipe dream, this big dream I had to act, and my son had just been born which is a crazy story. My son was 6 month old and New York was wearing on me. I had watched the twin towers fall with my own eyes, I had a new-born during the east coast power outage, and I knew I had to get out of New York.

I left everything, a career at the very top to start at the very bottom of another career. Fortunately, there were so many commercials that replaced my modeling income. I dove deep into acting school here. Then I got a series with Tatum O’Neal on fox called “Wicked Games” and then David Kelley put me in several things. Since then my career has been kind of growing and growing.  I got this hilarious statistic that said I‘ve been on 660 auditions and I’ve had 630 no’s and yet I’ve had a very successful career out here in L.A. Acting is learning how to handle rejection in a way that you don’t have to take it personally or make it mean anything when you’re not right for a project.

 

upfrontNY: Is there anything you actually miss about New York?

Paul Greene: Yeah, I went back recently. I actually had an opportunity to play Hallelujah at Carnegie Hall this November. I’m a musician and songwriter and I did a film called “Buttons” that was a Christmas musical. The director heard me singing a cover of Hallelujah and he asked me if I wanted to perform at Carnegie Hall for Kate Winslet’s Autism fundraiser. So I got the opportunity of a lifetime to sing a song that I love at one of the most incredible venues. I really love the weather on the west coast, but I love New Yorkers. I love them. I love how to me they’re really kind. People always say they’re so rude, but I don’t find that. I find New Yorkers amazing. Maybe that’s just my creation or my listening of who they are, but I’ve never had trouble with an attitude unless they’re in a bad mood and you know it. I miss the four seasons and the farmers’ markets, the Union Square Market.

 

upfrontNY: Can you also tell us about your upcoming album?

Paul Greene: It was Carnegie Hall that re-inspired me. I had been playing music all along just as a side gig and when I was asked to do it in Carnegie Hall it put a fire in my step. I had to get back into vocal lessons and really up my game with my guitar. I sang with a 100 piece symphony orchestra, a 200 person choir. I’ve been passionate about music all my life. I played drums first and trombone and different instruments, but really fell in love with guitar in my twenties. I used to play in the subways of New York. I had two albums back then and hadn’t put out anything in 15 years. After Carnegie Hall I started sharing the video of me performing there and a lot of my fans from “When Calls the Heart” asked me to put out an album. It’s new Americana is the closest vibe. It is big open songs that you have when you’re driving across the desert, that kind of music with a bit of a gospel edge to it, if there’s such thing as a gospel edge. It’s a tribute to my father who passed a few years back.

I’m giving some of the proceeds to the ALS.net which is the Therapy Development Institute in Boston.  I feel if there’s a possibility to find a cure for ALS, the folks at TDI [Therapy Development Institute] have a good shot at it. They’re on the hot pursuit of a cure.

Another portion is going to “Sharkwater” which is my friend Robbie’s conservation of sharks. So, the album is checking so many boxes for me. It’s a bit of a humanitarian project, but it also gives me an outlet to create music and work with an amazing band that I just love. It’s a passion of mine and a lot of the songs are in tribute to my father and the kind of music he liked in the 70s.

upfrontNY: Can you tell us a little bit more about “Sharkwater”?

Paul Greene:  Yeah, #teamsharkwater or @teamsharkwater is the social media. My friend is Robbie Stewart who died two years ago trying to film this one shark when a mix of gases with his rebreather actually killed him. He was a dear friend. I’m very concerned with the oceans and also the apex predator being annihilated by commercial fishing. It’s a really important film out now on iTunes called “Sharkwater Extinction”. It’s a really important conversation. I’m trying to bring as much awareness to it as I can to honor my brother; he was not my real brother, but he was a dear brother of mine.

 

upfrontNY: You have a parenting book. Can you tell us about that?

Paul Greene: Yes, this is funny. So, I was at this event and a publisher came up to me at a Hearties convention. He asked me if I ever thought about doing a book. I’ve sort of been creating a life hack book for dads. It’s a deck of cards like an Ernest Hemingway sized little field guide for dads called “52 Ways to Be the Dad You Wished You Had.” Every card in the deck of cards represents one week. Every chapter in the book represents a week. There’s an app that reminds you what that week’s about, reminding dads a way to connect with their sons and their daughters in a way that’s a little unconventional.

The kids that are growing up now are requiring a new style of parenting. The old paradigm that “I’m the parent and you’re the child” just creates rebels and distance. So, how can we create this where there is still strong values, strong agreements and rules, but it’s not a bullying situation. I learned all of this from my father as well as my coach and my son has actually taught me a great deal. I learned how to ask him what he needs. Not every dad out there had a great dad to give him an example, so this book is going to be an easy stocking stuffer and an easy Father’s Day gift that will be in stores around the world and online. There will also be a podcast. It’s a topic that I’m very passionate about and the book and the cards are just a piece of it; they come together as a gift set. I’m really excited about it.

I was offered a publishing deal and I’m just expanding the chapters now, but I had already been writing it for years and now it’s just tweaking it and getting printed. I’ve just been taking notes on what works and doesn’t work with my son. I had a great coach, he’s my volleyball coach and I had another woman who was a mentor of mine. Along the way they’ve just given me these incredible nuggets of wisdom of parenting that I want to share with the world and I have a platform to do that.

 

Paule Greene: Also, “Sharkwater 1” is available as well which I loved so much and it will change your relationship to the water and sharks. https://www.sharkwater.com

Paul will be releasing his music on his social media channels!

Follow along to keep up to date with all the great projects he is working on!

Instagram: @paulgreeneofficial

Twitter: @paulgreenemedia 

Facebook: Paul Green Official