Hilarie Burton-Morgan is enjoying newlywed bliss after marrying actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan earlier this month.
Hilarie Burton-Morgan is enjoying newlywed bliss after marrying actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan earlier this month.
ET's Katie Krause spoke with the 37-year-old actress on Tuesday in Beverly Hills about her new Lifetime holiday film, A Christmas Wish, where she also discussed her wedding to Jeffrey after dating for more than a decade.
"I've always been very hesitant about weddings," she admitted. "It felt like throwing your own personal prom and kind of icky, and ours was so intimate and small and it was us."
Hilarie -- who confirmed that she's changed her last name to Burton-Morgan -- said the couple didn't write their own vows. She also talked about Jeffrey's Supernatural co-star, Jensen Ackles, officiating the wedding.
"I had to, like, google wedding ceremonies and, like, send a script to Jensen because he got ordained just for this," she shared. "He's going to open a megachurch now, I'm sure. Everybody should join Jensen Ackles' megachurch, he's got the collar and everything."
"Norman [Reedus] did a reading for us and Jensen officiated," she continued. "Jensen is the one who introduced us, so it was fitting since it was his big idea in the first place."
Burton said her One Tree Hill co-stars Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz being at the wedding also meant a lot to her.
"We went through a lot together and I appreciate them," she said. "Now that we are adult woman, I really appreciate what they stand for, and what they fight for and I will fight alongside them for anything."
"There will absolutely be opportunities in the future for us to work together," she added about being very much open to reuniting on-screen with them. "Yeah, Sophia and I have birthdays that are very close together and this year we were like, let's make this our year."
As for the secret to her lasting relationship with 53-year-old Jeffrey, she said it's all about growth.
"I think finding someone you can be your best and worst with is important," she said. "And yeah, you're going to change a lot over 10 years, 20 years, 40 years. And so it's a choice. You know, you make the choice to say, 'All right, well, I like you now, I'm gonna choose to like you in 10 years,' and I lucked out because I met someone who is capable of a lot of growth and is very much a good dad and partner."
Speaking of her two kids with Jeffrey -- 9-year-old son Augustus and 1-year-old daughter George -- the actress revealed their different interests.
"Gus is a horror movie director, like, already," she said. "He's very serious about it. He has been directing stop motion movies."
Meanwhile, Hilarie said her daughter is already showing a strong personality.
"She's my MeToo baby," she said. "When she was born, she came in with fangs, like, her teeth came in fangs first and so she looked like a vampire for a while and I'm like, 'No one's going to mess with this person, she's terrifying.' She says 'no' and means it. She's very chatty but if you're like, 'Give mama a kiss,' and she says no, I'm good with it. She's got boundaries."
Meanwhile, Hilarie's highly anticipated Lifetime holiday movie, A Christmas Wish, features a major One Tree Hill reunion. Former One Tree Hill stars Tyler Hilton, Colin Fickes, Antwon Tanner and Lee Norris also star in the film, which revolves around a tradition involving a wishing box in the small town of Ponchatoula, Louisiana.
"I only like a small group of people and so I'm just going to continue to recycle my friendships until I've exhausted them," she joked about continuing to find projects with her former co-stars, though she noted that they are still not interested in ever doing a One Tree Hill reboot. "We're obsessed with each other and it's probably exhausting for anyone that's new to us."
On a more serious note, Hilarie shared why she enjoys working with Lifetime after already having appeared in three of the network's holiday films.
"In that genre, there hasn't been a lot of diversity, and there hasn't been a lot of inclusion, and Lifetime has been really wonderful about breaking a lot of those barriers," she noted. "They're being really progressive about the storylines that we're doing and in our movie, in particular, I was clear that there had to be representation for the LGBTQ community and they said 'yes, absolutely, of course, whatever you want.' ... It's not a plot point in the movie, it's just a fact of life. I respect how progressive and inclusive Lifetime is."
A Christmas Wish debuts on Lifetime on Nov. 28.
ET spoke with Hilarie and Jeffrey last April at the Rampage premiere in Los Angeles, where they talked about a then 1-month-old George. Watch the video below for more:
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