Hallmark’s Nikki DeLoach Explains Behind the Scenes Dance Videos (Exclusive)

When she’s on-screen, Nikki DeLoach is often facing some sort of heartache she must overcome as her male counterpart falls in love with her resilience. It’s serious. But when the cameras stop rolling, the set turns into an epic dance party.

In Instagram videos from her latest movie, Home Turf, premiering on Saturday, Oct. 4 on Hallmark Channel, DeLoach is in an office, dressed in a suit, and shaking it like she’s in the middle of a club to Doechii’s “Nissan Altima.” Crew members surround her, and they’re getting in on the action as well. “Between ‘cut’ and ‘action,’ we dance,” the star wrote.

“It just makes the day more fun, lighter. It gets us through the long days,” DeLoach, 46, tells PEOPLE. “On this movie especially, we danced more than I have on any others because all the people involved were musical theater people.”

But keeping things light isn’t the only reason DeLoach dances as much as possible.

“I was a dancer for 20 years,” says the actress who began her career on The All New Mickey Mouse Club in the 1990s. “I didn’t realize that what I was doing as a child was I was actually moving pain and trauma out of my body. Now, as an adult who studied, who’s gone through trauma therapy, I realize that we have to move to release, right? So I have just been dancing my whole life.”

Her daily dance parties also take place at home with her husband, Ryan Goodell, and sons Hudson, 11, and Bennett, 8.

“If everybody’s fighting, everybody’s in a bad mood, I turn on the music,” she says. “Next thing you know, everybody’s attitude shifts. And I just carried that onto set years ago.”

DeLoach often presses play on the tunes right after the cast and crew return from lunch. “We get our energy back, shake those lunch lows off us and jump right back into our day.”

Getting the crew involved is especially important to her.

“These crews work their butts off, and my job is to make sure that while they’re working their butts off, they’re also having a great time, being treated with respect and kindness, and being fed well,” she says. “So I love when I put on the music and the crew is also moving their bodies too.”

DeLoach also puts her movement to work, co-hosting the Dance Party to End ALZ fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association with Ashley Williams. (The two Hallmark Channel favorites recently announced the next one, taking place on Sept. 13, 2026, in Los Angeles.) She’s also the co-chair of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles‘ largest fundraising initiative, which includes their annual star-studded gala (and DeLoach’s new collaboration with Raine Jewelry on a bracelet inspired by Bennett’s journey with heart defects since birth).

Next, she’d love to dance more onscreen — on Dancing with the Stars!

“I’ve been wanting to get on that show for years,” she admits. “Come on! I’d donate all the money to charity! I would dance on behalf of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Alzheimer’s.”

In the meantime, she can be seen in Home Turf as the new dean of a college who becomes a house-mom to a football team when their dorm becomes unlivable, thanks to a suggestion from the football coach (Warren Christie).

“They just bring in their boy energy and their mess and chaos ensues,” DeLoach says. “She falls in love with these boys and takes them under her wing as a mama bear. And it softens her and really helps her to realize what matters most in this world.”

“Warren Christie is such an exceptional leading man, and it’s such a fun movie,” she adds. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had that much fun on one of our sets. We laughed so hard. We had such a blast making this.”

Home Turf premieres Saturday, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel.