KJ Apa’s Jimmy Stewart Brought Biopic Costar Jen Lilley to Tears: ‘It Was Surreal’

He’s played Archie Andrews, he might be Mr. Fantasy, but can KJ Apa believably embody a Hollywood icon like Jimmy Stewart?

That’s the question that was on some fans’ minds when the Riverdale hunk was cast as the titular Jimmy in the upcoming biopic. But according to Jen Lilley, Apa’s costar in the movie, he totally nails it  — so much so that he brought her to tears.

“We did a table read over Zoom, and KJ’s camera was off,” the Days of Our Lives alum, who plays Jimmy’s wife Gloria Stewart, recalls to ReMind Magazine. “There were several moments where, because my camera was off, I just freely let myself cry tears of gratitude and awe that I got to be part of it because it felt like I was in a table read with James Stewart. It was surreal.”

Everett Collection

Lilley, a Hallmark holiday movie vet currently starring in Vision Films’ A Chrismystery, may have also seemed like an unusual choice to play the wife of a film legend, but it sounds like the creative team behind Jimmy had her in mind from the start.

“Somehow I was already on the producer’s shortlist of people that they thought would suit Gloria Stewart,” she shares. “My friend, Billy Hallowell, who I do a podcast Into the Supernatural with, was talking to this woman, Angela [Galgani Sullivan], who’s a producer, and he said, ‘Have you thought of Jen Lilley? Do you know who Jen Lilley is?’ And she was like, ‘Oh, she’s the top of my list. I just don’t think she would do it.’ He said, ‘Well, I think she might. You should just send her the script.’”

It worked — Lilley fell in love with the script. As she recalls, “I laughed, I cried — this movie gives you all the feels.”

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The film is scheduled to release in November 2026, and Lilley sees it as perfect timing with the holiday season kicking off and Stewart re-entering everyone’s homes with repeat viewings of It’s a Wonderful Life. “It is one of those movies that’s going to get people in the mood for the holidays, even though it’s not explicitly a holiday movie,” she says.

Part of that is thanks to the man behind the film’s protagonist, George Bailey. “Who James Stewart really was. And he really was George Bailey. Everything that George Bailey experiences in that movie very much paralleled James Stewart’s life, and yet his life had a very happy, redemptive ending.”

We’ll have to wait a year to see the final result, but Lilley promises it’ll be worth the wait, gushing that “the cinematography is amazing, and I know the score is going to be amazing and the wardrobe was on point … I think it’s going to be like [her Oscar-winning film] The Artist. I think it’s going to be an Academy Award contender.”