Several Holly Pond residents of the four-legged variety will soon make their silver screen debut as part of an upcoming Hallmark movie set to air next month.

Stephanie Fortner, who co-owns Fortner Farm in Holly Pond with her husband, Benny, said several of the animals that serve as part of the farm’s petting zoo will make an appearance during a festival scene in the upcoming Hallmark flick “Double Scoop”.

The movie, which was filmed in Harpersville in May, stars Taylor Cole and Ryan McPartlin as two marketing professionals who compete to land the same dairy farm as their client. (And, we’re guessing, fall in love in the process.)

Fortner said that originally, a Hallmark representative reached out to Fortner Farm to see if it would be a good setting to film the dairy farm scenes, and while ultimately it wasn’t, the farm’s petting zoo animals made a big enough impression to land the gig on their own.

Ultimately, several animals from the farm, including a goat, calf and mini-donkeys, were included in the festival scene as well as Fortner herself. She said it all was a surreal experience given that they opened the petting zoo in 2020 after she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer, never expecting it would someday be a part of a movie set.

“I wouldn’t get out of bed, so my husband pretty much started the petting zoo so that I’d have to get out of bed,” said Fortner. “One goat led to another, but we would have never thought in a billion years we’d be doing a movie with actors that live in L.A. and getting texts from producers and executive producers and everybody. It’s just really surreal.”

Fortner said it was interesting to see how detailed the filming process could be, with them arriving early in the morning and not leaving until the evening hours despite only being a part of one scene.

“It was crazy,” said Fortner. “We got there about 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. and didn’t leave until 7 p.m. Every shot was done almost 10 times. It’s something to see with all the big cameras and the big screens. My husband got to do the little ‘Action’ part. That’s all he wanted to do, he said. I want to do the ‘take action’.”

The Fortner family is looking forward to watching “Double Scoop” when it premieres on the Hallmark channel at 7 p.m. CST on Aug. 23.

“It’s going to be really fun just to see what they used and to see our name at the end in the credits. We never thought cancer would have brought us, you know, things like this, but we enjoyed it.”

To find out more about Fortner Farm and how to schedule a tour, visit their website.