‘When Calls the Heart’ Star Kavan Smith Explains How His ‘Big Sky River’ Character Is Similar to Lee Coulter

TL;DR: 

• When Calls the Heart’s Kavan Smith plays a widowed sheriff in his new Hallmark movie Big Sky River. 
• He says there are some similarities between his character, Sheriff Boone Taylor, and Lee Coulter on When Calls the Heart. 
• Smith has said Hearties can expect “twists and turns” for Lee and Rosemary in the show’s 10th season. 

In his new Hallmark movie, Big Sky River, Kavan Smith plays a widower with two sons who is taking the first steps toward a new relationship. In many ways, Sheriff Boone Taylor is a far cry from Leland Coulter, the character Smith plays on the Hallmark Channel frontier drama When Calls the Heart. But the actor says that the two men have some things in common. 

Kavan Smith from ‘When Calls the Heart’ stars in ‘Big Sky River’ 

Big Sky River‘s Boone is a small-town Montana sheriff raising two kids on his own. Tara Kendall (Emmanuelle Vaugier) is a divorced woman who wants to put some distance between herself and her ex. She books a summer rental in Parable, where she spent time as a kid, and soon develops a relationship with her neighbor, Boone. 

On When Calls the Heart, Lee is one of Hope Valley’s most successful businessmen. He owns the sawmill and helps his wife Rosemary (Pascale Hutton) run the local newspaper. Together, the pair often provide an element of comic relief in each episode, though there are also plenty of more serious moments between the two as they deal with marital issues and their struggle to have a child. 

Smith says his ‘Big Sky River’ character has some things in common with Lee Coulter 

During a chat with Vaugier and  Linda Lael Miller (who wrote the book on which Big Sky River is based), Smith weighed in on what Boone and Lee had in common. 

“They’re both good guys. They do their best to do their best,” he said (via YouTube). “They really try to do the right thing.”

“With Lee, I’ve always made it important that he is very earnestly trying to do the right thing. Sometimes he trips up. That’s human,” Smith added. However, his Big Sky River character is “a bit more real. He’s got some more damage,” the actor said. 

“In When Calls the Heart we’re sort of almost science-fiction. It’s not quite reality,” he said. “So I would say Boone is perhaps more grounded in reality.”

What’s next for Lee on ‘When Calls the Heart’? 

When Calls the Heart Season 9 ended on a happy note for Lee and Rosemary as the couple learned that she was pregnant with their first child after years of trying for a baby. But the journey to parenthood may not be entirely smooth, Smith and Hutton teased in an interview with ET ahead of the season 9 finale, which aired in May. 

“The twists and turns that are being established over the [last two episodes of season 9], they are still going to be twisting and turning into season 10, if we’re so lucky,” Smith said. 

“There are still a lot of unexpected twists and turns to this story,” Hutton said. “It’s still an unexpected journey that is unfolding. It’s not just, ‘Yay, we’re pregnant and here we go.’ There’s a lot of twists and turns and it’s not totally smooth.” 

Big Sky River airs Sunday, August 7 at 8 p.m. ET on Hallmark Movie & Mysteries. 

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