Long Island's Craig Geoghan wins Hallmark's 'Finding Mr. Christmas'

Lake Ronkonkoma-raised Craig Geoghan won season 2 of the Hallmark Channel reality show competition "Finding Mr. Christmas" Monday night, earning himself a supporting role in this Saturday’s Hallmark TV movie "A Make or Break Holiday."

"It was just a sense of relief," Geoghan, 34, told Newsday on Tuesday. "You would think that whoever's name was called would immediately jump for joy, but after a long time of pretty intense competition, going through a lot of different emotions, highs and lows, it was definitely a weight off my shoulders. And then once that kind of settled in, then it really hit me, like, ‘Oh, OK, this is fun. This is cool. I can celebrate now.’ But right off the bat, it was relief."

As a Los Angeles actor, the Smithtown-born Geoghan was among 10 men vying for a role in one of Hallmark’s signature holiday movies. In the show's climactic eighth episode he triumphed over fellow finalists Angel Garet and Rustin Sailors to land the role of Reid, the brother of star Hunter King’s character, Liv, in the new telefilm.

Liv and her boyfriend, Daniel (Evan Roderick), have broken up, but for family’s sake pretend to still be together over the holidays. Reid along with Daniel’s sister, Kim (Brittney Wilson), secretly tries to rekindle the couple’s romance. Pulling Reid’s strings is his grandmother (Linda Darlow). “He doesn’t want to relationship-trap this couple into getting back together,” Geoghan said of his character, "he doesn’t want to be a pawn in Grandma's game, but he finds himself there. Really,” Geoghan added, chuckling, "it's just Reid can't get out of his own way. But he does learn!"

In real life, the actor playing Grandma became an unlikely friend. "She was the one we looked forward to seeing on set the most every day, because she's been doing it for so long and she approaches it with this attitude of, ‘Yeah, we're here to have fun. Don't worry about this, don't worry about that.’ She really was like the grandma on the set. And she's been texting me every single Tuesday morning after [an episode of] ‘Finding Mr. Christmas,’ even though she knew the end result, saying how she watched it and ‘Whew! Close call!’ and all those things. Linda's awesome."

Geoghan, an all-Long Island quarterback at Sachem North High School, moved to Los Angeles in 2017 and has found work on Hulu’s "How I Met Your Father," Fox’s "Rescue: HI-Surf" and other projects, plus a starring role in Carrie Underwood’s 2022 "Ghost Story" music video. A Stony Brook graduate with a bachelor's degree in health science, he additionally works as a personal trainer.

It was his parents, he said, "who convinced me to get some headshots taken. ‘People tell you you're handsome, you can do it. If someone's got to book the job, why not you?’ And finally I said, ‘You know what? Let's just go for it. I got some photos taken and a week later I had an agent and I was already going out for jobs," initially in print modeling. "It all happened pretty quickly, which was cool."

LI TEEN MISSES 'VOICE' FINALS Garden City teen Ava Nat's journey on "The Voice" is over.

On Monday's Part One of the NBC show's live finale, it was revealed that Nat was not chosen in a viewers' vote to determine the final two competitors.

That honor went to Max Chambers, from Michael Bublé's team, and DEK of Hearts, from Niall Horan's team. — NEWSDAY STAFF