While filming Virgin River Season 7 in Vancouver this June, Alexandra Breckenridge joined friends Ryan and Adam Rose on their new podcast Small Stupid Stuff.
Speaking from her trailer between shooting days, Breckenridge opened up about her decades-long friendship with Ryan Eggold, gave a rare glimpse into the on-set energy of Virgin River, and revealed details about a new Netflix holiday movie she filmed with him, My Secret Santa.
Virgin River Season 7: From Vancouver to Mexico
When Alexandra Breckenridge joined Ryan and Adam Rose’s Small Stupid Stuff podcast in June 2025, she spoke from her trailer on the Virgin River set in Vancouver. At the time, she offered only a status update: “Two more weeks here in Vancouver and then we go to an undisclosed location.”
We now know where that “undisclosed location” turned out to be. After months of filming in British Columbia, the Virgin River crew quietly shifted production to Tulum and the Yucatán, using Hacienda Cenote Oxmán, a striking estate often chosen for film shoots. Breckenridge herself has since posted from Mexico, confirming what many fans suspected: Mel and Jack are headed for their long-awaited honeymoon in the upcoming season.
Premiere Timing Looks Set for 2026
Netflix has not announced a release date for Virgin River Season 7, but every production signal points to a 2026 premiere. The writing team for Season 8 has yet to officially open the room, and insiders say there’s no urgency. With Season 7 locked for a 2026 debut and Season 8 already renewed, Netflix appears comfortable taking its time on scripts and filming through 2026 for an expected 2027 launch of Season 8.
A Friendship That Spans Projects and Years
Away from production updates, the interview highlights the long, easy rapport between Alexandra Breckenridge and host Ryan Rose. Ryan jokes that he has known her “about 304 years,” tracing their first meeting back to the FX drama Dirt and the thread they kept through This Is Us and now Virgin River.
Their exchange feels warm and slightly mischievous, inside jokes about Vancouver’s nickname “the coup,” playful one-upmanship over who met whom first, and effortless pivots between work stories and personal life. When Ryan shares a behind-the-scenes photo of Breckenridge mid-prosthetic makeup from their new holiday project, he praises her performance without giving away plot details. It’s the kind of back-and-forth that sounds less like a formal interview and more like two longtime colleagues catching up on and off set.
Alex Breckenridge and Ryan Eggold Reunite for Netflix’s My Secret Santa
Alexandra Breckenridge and Ryan Eggold also teamed up off the Virgin River set for a new Netflix holiday romantic comedy, titled My Secret Santa. The film is directed by Mike Rohl, known for The Princess Switch trilogy, and written by Ron Oliver (Falling for Christmas) and Carley Smale (Snowed-Inn Christmas) was filmed at the beginning of 2025.
Netflix describes the story this way:
A vivacious single mom in need of a job decides to disguise herself as a man in order to get hired as the seasonal Santa at a luxury ski resort. But when she starts to fall in love with the hotel manager, complications develop that could ruin everything.
Breckenridge described on the podcast how the part required full prosthetic transformation: a bodysuit, forehead and cheek pieces, a new nose, mustache, beard, wig, hat, and the heavy velvet suit. Shooting wasn’t glamorous. Exterior nights were freezing, while interiors turned stifling; production tucked ice packs inside her costume to keep her from overheating. She joked she had “never really known what swamp ass was” until that shoot.
The rest of the cast includes Ryan Eggold, Madison MacIsaac (as Zoey Jacobsen), Tia Mowry, and Diana Maria Riva. Rose appears briefly as an elf, teasing that he was “underused”, but spends more time praising Breckenridge’s comic timing and refusing to spoil the film’s romantic beats. Their on-mic banter captured the comfort of longtime collaborators: he shared a mid-makeup photo of her Santa look, she laughed through the memory of grueling night shoots, and both played coy about plot twists while clearly enjoying the reunion.
Netflix has set December 3, 2025 as the global premiere date for My Secret Santa.
I like You Very Much
Breckenridge also mentioned her self-produced podcast, I Like You Very Much, twice during the conversation, which she co-hosts with her Virgin River co-star Zibby Allen. The show is independently funded and fully paywalled, with part of its proceeds going to Save the Children. Its first season, released a year ago and featuring a wide lineup of Virgin River cast and crew, has not been followed by any sign of a second run. Because the podcast sits behind a private pay model, there are no public listening figures or subscriber counts to indicate how it performed.