What do you give somebody who’s an Emmy Award winner for his or her fiftieth birthday? A starring position in a Lifetime vacation film, after all. “Leisure Tonight” host Nischelle Turner, identified for protecting movie star information and purple carpets, is entering into the highlight in a brand new realm: appearing in a characteristic movie.
“I’m utterly stepping out of my consolation zone to do one thing that I’ve by no means executed earlier than,” Turner advised PEOPLE earlier than starring in Lifetime’s newest vacation film, “A Runaway Bride for Christmas.” “I’m attempting to offer myself grace, however I’m additionally a kind of perfectionists the place I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’”
Turner’s starring position got here by serendipity. Not lengthy after turning 50, an govt at A&E noticed her host an awards gala earlier this 12 months and requested her if she did scripted work.
“‘I stated, ‘No, I’m not an actor, I’m a journalist,’” Turner advised him. “And he was like, ‘Effectively, I feel you’ll be able to.’ I turned 50 this 12 months, so I’ve actually been telling myself joyful birthday. I stated to myself, ‘You understand what? I’m going to do issues this 12 months that I’ve by no means executed earlier than, and I’m going to lean into these issues and I’m going to do them purposefully and deliberately.’”
Turner didn’t simply dip her toe into motion; she went all the way in which in, ensuring she was lead actress materials. “They stated you’ll be able to select no matter position you need and the weirdo overachiever in me stated, ‘How about I simply be the lead?’”
In “A Runaway Bride for Christmas,” Turner performs a girl who leaves her fiancé within the massive metropolis on their wedding ceremony day and returns to her hometown, the place household and a lovely, long-lost pal (Mark Ghanimé) assist her put her life again collectively. Though there was a heightened stage of romance for the movie, Turner admitted she needed to alter.
“Mark is a extremely nice man and a very good actor,” she says of her love curiosity within the movie. “We needed to kiss, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know learn how to kiss [on camera]’. And he was laughing. So I’m like, ‘What am I alleged to do? How am I supposed to show my head?’”
Nonetheless, the transfer has prompted her to reevaluate some points of her actual life. She’s nonetheless courting with the intent of discovering Mr. Ceaselessly, however is contemplating courting outdoors of her norms.
“Hear. I don’t cover something. I’m in these single woman streets and there’s pee within the pool! It’s arduous out right here. It’s very arduous. And I’m at an age now, to be completely trustworthy, to the place I’m searching for a life associate and I don’t know that that should finish in marriage. I’ve probably not dated interracially. I want Black males however I additionally know that I have to be open.”
From journeys to Paris and dance courses, Turner has added to her reinvention and is cherishing each second of it.
“I’m an ingenue at 50!” Turner exclaimed. “My first film, to be the lead in it, that was fairly wild. We shot it in 11 days and after we have been executed, that subsequent morning I awoke and I used to be like, ‘holy s—. I simply shot a film!’”
“A Runaway Bride for Christmas” is out there now on Lifetime.
