Sarah Drew whipped up a little holiday magic all on her own.
The Grey's Anatomy alum makes her screenwriting debut with Reindeer Games Homecoming, premiering Nov. 12 on Lifetime. Sarah, who also stars in the movie alongside her former Grey's cast mate Justin Bruening, said she came up with the idea while filming another Lifetime movie, 2019's Twinkle All the Way.
So, she decided to run it by the film's producers.
"I pitched it to them assuming that we would hire a writer and go into development or whatever," Sarah exclusively told E! News. "After the pitch, they said, ‘Sarah, you know this world so clearly. We were watching the movie while you're giving the pitch. Like, we see it. And you should just go home and buy [screenwriting software] Final Draft and write it yourself.'"
While it's quite the daunting task for a first-time screenwriter, Sarah was more than up to the challenge, revealing, "I went home and I bought Final Draft and I had my first draft of Reindeer Games in three weeks. I got so completely absorbed in it and it was so much fun. It's such a delightful way to use the creative storytelling brain."
And Sarah has clearly caught the screenwriting bug.
"I'm already pitching a true story that that was brought to me, actually," she admitted. "I've been working on the outline and researching and talking to the person it's about and the people in her life. I've been completely immersed in more writing projects since and I'm in the beginning stages of planning what our Christmas movie next year will be."
However, there's one we won't find her writing: an episode of Grey's Anatomy.
"I'm really more interested in creating something from scratch." the actress, who played Dr. April Kepner on the medical drama from 2009 to 2018, explained. "I'm not sure that I would want to leap into a writers' room of a show that's already going, at least at this moment. I'm having a lot of fun just crafting my own stuff. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at right now."
Sarah returned to Grey's for a guest spot in the season 18 finale earlier this year—alongside Jesse Williams, who plays her partner Jackson Avery—and while she isn't interested in crafting her own storyline for the show, she does have an idea for another Japril return.
"We know they're happy in Boston together, so that is that is good news to me," she said. "If there was anything else that we wanted to tell about them, I would love to see how they got back together. But that would require going back in time."
Does she think that's possible?
"We've done it before," she said, "Why not?"
Reindeer Games Homecoming premieres Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. on Lifetime.