News & Features
Life on Mars: Local twins to star on new ABC sitcom
By Krista Hutchins
Oct 8, 2008 - 8:19:13 AM

Caleb and Christian Wallace take a break from show biz to play.

Call it a case of art imitating life – or is it life imitating art?  Jen Wallace of Chester is not so sure which statement best sums up her life.

That’s because her five-year-old twin boys, Caleb and Christian, are now actors on an upcoming ABC sitcom called “Life on Mars.” The show is a drama based on a hit BBC series.

The weekly seven-hour one-way trips to New York City, combined with the excitement, exhaustion, and introduction to the world of show biz, have the Wallace family feeling a little bit like they are on the planet Mars.  

“We act and we have a fake mommy and daddy and our name is Sammy and we’re going to be on a TV show,” boasts Caleb.

Finishing his brother’s sentences, Christian adds, “It’s going to be on October 23 at 9 p.m. and we’re going to be real on TV, not fake.”

Jen Wallace says it all has happened so fast.

“For years, I’ve been getting emails from the Twins Talent Agency, and I’ve ignored them.  But my aunt, who is a twin, called me and said they were looking for twin boys between the ages of four and seven for a commercial,” she says.

She emailed a picture to the agency in August, and immediately got a call back saying the twins were wanted in New York for an interview for a television show.

“I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do,” Wallace says.

After mulling it over and talking to her husband, she talked herself out of it. “I just thought, this sounds crazy.  I don’t think I can do it.” But after a sleepless night and a chat with a friend, Wallace changed her plans. “I said to myself, why are you not doing this, you big fat dummy? You can’t miss this opportunity.”  

Wallace laughs and gets more animated as she says, “I told the boys, we’re going on an adventure and we’re not going to school today.  It was only the fourth day of school.  I dropped my daughter off at a friend’s house and we made it to New York in time for the interview at 4 p.m.”

Her interview, she says, consisted of a lot of waiting around and a brief tour of the studio and more waiting around before the boys talked to some of the production staff.

All of it ended up being the interview.  The staff wanted to see how the boys handled just doing nothing. 

 “I figured we’d never be back, so I asked for a tour and when we left I promised the kids a piece of pizza and a trip to the big M&M store,” Wallace says.

She says her GPS and phone calls back home could not help her navigate the city. 

“We ended up in Chinatown.  We didn’t get pizza and we spent the night in New Jersey.”

Wallace says since she promised the boys an adventure, they went back in the city the next day, ate pizza, went to the M&M store, rode the subway, and tried to go to the Statue of Liberty.   Completely exhausted, they left the Big Apple and figured their adventure was over.  

On the way home, somewhere near Baltimore, she got a phone call telling her the boys got the part as the child version of the main character.

“It was pouring rain, and I had to pull over to scream and make phone calls.”

At first, Christian and Caleb appeared as non-speaking roles only, but have recently received lines. They will appear in episodes three, four, and five, with possibly more to come.

“They have principal speaking roles,” Wallace says, pushing over a script and showing some of the boys’ lines, some onscreen, some off.

The Wallace family – Jen and her husband Chris, daughter Ellery, almost three; and Chris and Caleb – are all trying to take it one day at a time.

The boys, however, don’t realize what they have accomplished and instead are enjoying some of life’s simple pleasures.

When asked about what it was like in New York City, they respond:

“The subway was cool and the Statue of Liberty, but we didn’t get to see that because it was pouring rain,” Caleb says.

Christian adds, “The M&M factory is so much fun. Lots of M&Ms!”

“Life on Mars” is set to premiere on ABC on October 23 at 9 p.m.

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