Hallmark’s A Costa Rican Wedding sounds glamorous, but shooting in the jungle was wild, full of critters and — at times — muddy for stars Rhiannon Fish and Christopher Russell.
“Right off the bat, Chris and I just got along so well,” Fish, 33, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her new rom-com. “We joked that maybe part of it was a trauma bond.”
The actress explained that the Costa Rica-based movie showed off the beauty of the country as well as a few of the more treacherous parts of its jungle. “A lot of it was really high stakes, stressful situations that we were put in,” Fish said. “But we formed this very close friendship very, very quickly. And I think that that very much translated into the characters and their relationship as well.”
A Costa Rican Wedding follows clumsy maid of honor Emily (Fish) as she ventures into the jungle with best man Ryan (Russell), who happens to be her nemesis, to find the bride’s lost wedding rings. The pair must locate the items in the wild while keeping their mission under wraps from the bride and groom.
During their journey, the duo encounter a lot of wild animals, including monkeys, alligators and a tarantula that lands on Emily. “I was so scared,” Fish told Us of the spider scene. “It was just truly the bravest thing I have ever done in my life.”
The actress joked that working with the creature helped her become more humane about “ethically removing spiders from my house,” even getting a “spider vacuum” to handle them more safely. “Now I vacuum them up and free them because nothing is ever going to be as bad as that tarantula on my body,” Fish revealed.
As far as Fish knows, none of the animals seen in the film were trained. “It was petrifying, but … you just sort of have to trust that you’re in safe hands and they’re never going to put you in a dangerous situation,” she recalled. “They were all real and they were all scary.”
Russell, 41, was equally as nervous about coming face-to-face with the animals on set, telling Us the alligator fans see in the movie is one that “just lives in that river.” He remembered the reptile being “very close,” but not close enough to worry about his safety.
Elsewhere in the film, the characters stumble upon a snake, which was once again real and terrifying. “They brought in a theoretically trained snake,” Russell recalled, adding that the animal “looked pretty untamed” despite there being snake handlers on set.
He questioned how the tarantula Fish worked with was tamed. “I don’t know how well you can train a spider, but sure,” Russell quipped, noting that the monkeys in the movie were local to the area and lived in the trees.
In addition to animal work, Fish and Russell had to overcome several elements that are part of the Costa Rican landscape.
“I was dripping sweat from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed and probably while I was sleeping. It was nuts,” Russell recalled, telling Us that a local told him it was the “hottest it has ever been” on record when they were in town. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a steam room, but take that and amplify it by a thousand. It was crazy.”
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The actor compared the experience to “being in Jurassic Park” after seeing a grasshopper that was “bigger than a shoe” on a craft services table during a night shoot.
Fish, meanwhile, was impressed by how “practical” the whole adventure was, including the team’s choice to make a “real mudslide” for one scene. While filming had its ups and downs, Russell and Fish really bonded on set and quickly embraced a brother-sister relationship.
“It turned out we had similar ways of working about going over the script and how you prepare it,” Russell recalled of meeting Fish after their long flight to Costa Rica. He teased, “I guess when you just hit it off with someone, they’re just really rude to you. But in the best possible way.”
Russell joked that he and Fish connected over making “little sarcastic comments” and had a “natural” banter off camera similar to that of their characters.
“I think it was just the fact that both of us were just thrown into this job in the jungle and we just happened to have a good rapport from the beginning [that made it work],” he added. “They got lucky with casting that these two people are basically the characters.”
Fish agreed, noting that she and Russell didn’t have to “turn it on” for the cameras. “He made it so easy,” she said.
A Costa Rican Wedding premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, August 17, at 8 p.m. ET. It is also available to stream on Hallmark Movies Now.
