COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Long before Maurice Hall found Hollywood stardom, he found local fame in central Ohio.
He set the Ohio high school touchdowns record as a standout running back at Brookhaven High School. That earned him a scholarship at Ohio State, where in 2002 he scored the game-winning touchdown in the critical win over Michigan. That team went on to win the National Championship.
After football, Hall joined our family at NBC4, serving as a sports reporter and Ohio State analyst. It was reporting on Football Friday Nite where "Mo" ended up discovering his life's new passion: acting.
"I remember those days when I was struggling to get through one piece. Struggling," Hall said during a recent visit to the NBC4 studios.
His struggles did not last long.
"Football Friday Nite is really what gave me the confidence to say I can be an actor," he said.
In 2009 he decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a full-time career in acting.
"I moved out by myself, you know, no relationship, no family at all, so it was a struggle," Hall said.
But just like in his football career, he knew how to hustle. He now has credits in more than 50 TV shows, and he's written, produced and starred in two feature films. The first, "Baker's Man" in 2017, was a romantic comedy.
His new Christmas movie, "A Heart For Christmas" taps into the popular genre of feel-good holiday films, and for Hall, this one feels especially good. His oldest daughter, Sydney, fueled Hall's creative side to make the film.
"She came up to me one day and she said, 'Dad, I want to be in a movie with you.' So I said, 'If you want to do this, we have to do two things: Take an acting class to see if you really like this and if you really want to do it. And then you're going to have to audition,'" Hall said. "She did phenomenal. And I said, 'Okay, I think she can do this.'"
Hall began writing the movie in 2022 and while it was filmed in southern California, he based the movie in Columbus.
"There's a lot of different Ohio references in the movie, so people are like, 'Oh, I caught that. I caught that...'" he said. "I think all my projects, I've always based them in Ohio. I think every story could be based here."
"A Heart for Christmas" is the story of a single father and his daughter's Christmas wish—to have a mother at home. Her actual mother turns out to be a major Hollywood star going through a career crisis. It has the classic love triangle elements of many "Hallmark"-style movies, but Hall said this one takes a unique turn.
"You're like, okay, I know how this is going to end, and with this one, you don't really know, and then when you see it, you're like, 'Oh, that was a great turn,'" he said.
"A Heart for Christmas" is streaming now for free on Roku, Tubi and Pluto TV. And with the early success of this film, Hall is already in talks for a new Christmas project which could be out next year.
