Skyler Samuels Takes on Aurora Teagarden in Mystery Movie Prequel

Published: June 13, 2023

Skyler Samuels Takes on Aurora Teagarden in Mystery Movie Prequel

By Movieguide® Contributor

Skyler Samuels is opening up about what it’s like to step into sleuth Aurora Teagarden’s shoes in the next installment of the popular movies.

AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES: SOMETHING NEW is a prequel to the popular Hallmark movies that starred Candace Cameron Bure.

Movieguide® previously reported on the prequel:

Entertainment Tonight recently reported that Hallmark is planning to make a prequel movie, AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES: SOMETHING NEW, with an all-new cast.

Skyler Samuels will star as the young version of Aurora Teagarden, while Evan Roderick will play a younger Arthur Smith. Marilu Henner, who plays Aurora’s mother in the series, will reprise her role.

According to ET’s plot synopsis, AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES: SOMETHING NEW will follow Aurora post-college and back in her hometown, where she is working as a teacher’s assistant in a crime-fiction class and as waitress. When pal Sally’s fiancé goes missing, she and Arthur team up to look for him. They find a body, but when it turns out to be someone else, Sally’s fiancé becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

“Our viewers have been waiting for more adventures with Aurora and her friends — what better way to do that than to take them back to when the young, amateur sleuth was just coming into her own?” Emily Merlin, Development Manager of Programming at Hallmark Media, said of the upcoming prequel. “The AURORA TEAGARDEN franchise is a fan favorite and we’re excited to share this new chapter with viewers.”

Samuels said she “wasn’t super familiar” with the movies, but once the opportunity to join the franchise arose, the actress “watched a bunch of the original ones and just really studied Aurora and her world and tried to hone in on her traits and characteristics that really made her her.”

“Then from there, I just reverse engineered who I imagined she might have been when she was in her early to mid 20s, and that’s really where the fun of inventing the younger Aurora came from,” she finished.

Samuels also spoke of her excitement to show viewers a different side of the detective — a less-together version of Aurora who is just now finding her footing as a sleuth.

“She really is a woman in transition between figuring out this hobby, this passion of hers that will eventually become her job, [but] while that is becoming more clear, her personal life is becoming less clear,” the actress. “It’s fun to see her get better at her mystery solving life and maybe a little bit messier in her personal life.”

So, will Samuels return for more AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES?

“I hope so. That’s definitely the plan,” she shared. “There’s a lot more young Aurora adventures to be told, so hopefully we get the chance to come back and give the audience a few more juicy movies.”