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What do you give someone who is an Emmy Award winner for their 50th birthday? A starring role in a Lifetime holiday movie, of course. “Entertainment Tonight” host Nischelle Turner, known for covering celebrity news and red carpets, is stepping into the spotlight in a new realm: acting in a feature film.
“I’m completely stepping out of my comfort zone to do something that I’ve never done before,” Turner told PEOPLE before starring in Lifetime’s latest holiday movie, “A Runaway Bride for Christmas.” “I’m trying to give myself grace, but I’m also one of those perfectionists where I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’”
Turner’s starring role came by serendipity. Not long after turning 50, an executive at A&E saw her host an awards gala earlier this year and asked her if she did scripted work.
“‘I said, ‘No, I’m not an actor, I’m a journalist,’” Turner told him. “And he was like, ‘Well, I think you can.’ I turned 50 this year, so I’ve really been telling myself happy birthday. I said to myself, ‘You know what? I’m going to do things this year that I’ve never done before, and I’m going to lean into those things and I’m going to do them purposefully and intentionally.’”
Turner didn’t just dip her toe into action; she went all the way in, making sure she was lead actress material. “They said you can choose whatever role you want and the weirdo overachiever in me said, ‘How about I just be the lead?’”
In “A Runaway Bride for Christmas,” Turner plays a woman who leaves her fiancé in the big city on their wedding day and returns to her hometown, where family and an attractive, long-lost friend (Mark Ghanimé) help her put her life back together. Although there was a heightened level of romance for the film, Turner admitted she had to adjust.
“Mark is a really great guy and a good actor,” she says of her love interest in the film. “We had to kiss, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to kiss [on camera]’. And he was laughing. So I’m like, ‘What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to turn my head?’”
Still, the move has prompted her to reevaluate some aspects of her real life. She’s still dating with the intent of finding Mr. Forever, but is considering dating outside of her norms.
“Listen. I don’t hide anything. I am in these single girl streets and there is pee in the pool! It’s hard out here. It’s very hard. And I’m at an age now, to be perfectly honest, to where I’m looking for a life partner and I don’t know that that needs to end in marriage. I have not really dated interracially. I prefer Black men but I also know that I need to be open.”
From trips to Paris and dance classes, Turner has added to her reinvention and is cherishing every moment of it.
“I’m an ingenue at 50!” Turner exclaimed. “My first movie, to be the lead in it, that was pretty wild. We shot it in 11 days and when we were done, that next morning I woke up and I was like, ‘holy s—. I just shot a movie!’”
“A Runaway Bride for Christmas” is available now on Lifetime.
