Jack Wagner Teases Melissa Gilbert’s Return and a ‘Life-Changing’ Event (Exclusive)

With production for Season 13 of When Calls the Heart underway, Jack Wagner, who plays Bill Avery, admits he never expected the series to last this long when he first signed on over a decade ago.

“No one does,” he notes. “But it also isn’t shocking when we get picked up every year. The ratings kept growing. When Calls the Heart is rated next to Sunday Night Football, so it just speaks to family-friendly television. It’s been just such a blessing.”

Wagner, a longtime Hallmark mainstay with a wealth of experience playing love stories, from his soap days as Nick Marone on The Bold and the Beautiful and Frisco Jones on General Hospital to his primetime role as on Melrose Place as Peter Burns, appreciates that Bill is now exploring that emotional territory on camera as well. “They brought [Little House on the Prairie alum] Melissa Gilbert on the show last year [as Georgie McGill], and I kissed her at the end of our one episode, and that kind of created a little romance for Bill,” he explains. “And Melissa’s coming back this year, so they’re going to keep this going, which I think is terrific. She’s great. I haven’t been playing that at all on When Calls the Heart, so for me, it’s like plugging into Jack Wagner from the ’80s or ’90s. I realized that’s why I’m having so much fun. It’s like, ‘Wow, I’m dusting off my old charming romance guy. Let’s dust this guy off.’”

Wagner points to the show’s ability to offer a much-needed escape from everyday life as one of its most appealing and enduring qualities. “I just think it’s fantastic because with the temperature in our country for the last almost 10 years, politically, etc., and all of the conflicts around the world, it’s so great that there’s this little pioneer town that people can embrace and find hope and a message of heartwarming joy and romance and community,” he observes. “Not to sound corny, but how do we support and love one another, as opposed to constantly want to tear each other apart? I think this show offers that. When people watch the show, they’re touched. That’s how I would sum it up. It touches them, and that’s why they become ‘Hearties.’”

He also feels it genuinely captures the spirit of a bygone era. “This show has stayed true to the period,” he points out. “We’ve introduced the railroad, we’ve introduced the telephone, and insulin, so we’ve really focused on letting the period tell the story, too. What the characters experience when the phone rang, and now the radio now, it’s so great.”

As for what fans can expect from Season 13, Wagner previews, “We’ve got to get Nathan [Grant, Kevin McGarry] and Elizabeth [Thornton, Erin Krakow] back, because they leave at the end of Season 12. They come back in the first episode, and it’s about their return and what life looks like for Little Jack [Thornton, Hyland Goodrich], now being [insulin] dependent, and how that’s going to evolve into town. How are we going to upgrade the medical situation, etc.?”

And look for a significant crisis to affect every citizen of Hope Valley, Wagner adds. “There’s going to be an event that happens, and I’ll just tease you a little bit, that’s going to be life-changing for everyone, and it’s reminiscent of what’s happened in L.A. recently,” he shares. “So that’s going to be the disaster and obstacle that we face this year as a community in Hope Valley, and it starts rather quickly. I don’t think we’ve had one of those for a while where the entire community was threatened, but that looks like the story we’re going to tell and the obstacle we’re going to face this year.”

When Calls the Heart, Season 13 Premiere, 2026, Hallmark Channel