How Alison Sweeney and Daughter Megan’s Movie Reflects Their Real-Life Relationship

Published: March 3, 2026

By Michaela Gordoni

Alison Sweeney and her daughter, Megan Sweeney, recently sat down to interview each other and talk about their new movie, ROMANCE AT HOPE RANCH.

“What is your favorite role that I’ve ever played?” Alison asked Megan.

“I can certainly tell you my least favorite,” the 17-year-old told her. “There was a role when I was around 7 that you did… You’re watching your movie downstairs and I remember someone pointed a weapon at you and I ran back upstairs and I started crying.”

Alison remembered that Megan took it very seriously.

Megan asked Alison, “Who’s your dream co-star in a future project?”

“I’d love to work with Margot Robbie. I just love her,” Alison responded.

The mother and daughter co-star in ROMANCE AT HOPE RANCH, which premiered on Feb. 28 on Hallmark. They also play a mother and daughter in the movie.

“How do you think our real-life relationship compared to our relationship in the movie?” Alison asked Megan.

“I’m going off to college soon. So, because I’m around that age, it was very it’s going to be a very emotional moment when it really happens.”

Alison said, “Isn’t that a funny thing? So, you aren’t in college yet, but we did do the very first scene of the movie…is that your character is going off to college. And I sort of had that moment, too.”

“I felt like, is it a nice practice that we got to do it once first, or was it like a spoiler, like, oh, now we know how it feels,” she continued. “So, when we do it for real, it’s not even going to be that. We already did this one.

Megan laughed, “I think it’s going to be worse. When that dorm room [door] closes and I’m by myself…like the [sob] volume’s going to go way up.”

Megan also wanted to know her mom’s advice for if she were to continue to act.

“I guess the hardest thing about being an actor in this industry is that is that it takes a lot of rejection,” the actress said. “People get turned down for roles a hundred times, a thousand times for every one role they get accepted. And you have to just not take it so personal.”

“You get excited, you read the scene and you picture yourself in it and that would be the thing is like don’t let it get you down. Or if it does get you down too much go do something else with your life like because it’s it that’s the way it is and that’s always the way it is.”

But after filming “1,000” takes for one scene, Megan thinks she’s more suited for a different career.

Part of ROMANCE AT HOPE RANCH’s synopsis reads, “Having just become an empty-nester with her daughter Maggie off to college, independent Denverite Hope Morgan is fulfilling her dream by buying a ranch in Ruidoso, NM, where she spent much time in her formative years with the strongest memories of her time there being the annual Giddy Up Gala.”

Alison recently told PEOPLE, “I was surprised by how sincere and sweet the first scene was between Megan and me, when my character, Hope, drops her daughter off at college…It made me far more emotional than I expected.”

The movie is available to stream now on Hallmark+.

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