Sarah Drew will lead Lifetime’s new film When I Said I Do, which premieres Saturday, May 23, 2026, at 8 p.m., and will be available for streaming the next day.
In the movie Drew plays Ali Corley, a widowed search-and-rescue K-9 handler who rebuilt her life and found love again after losing her husband on the job; she stars opposite Eric Johnson and the project lists Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black as executive producers.
The film is inspired by the Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black duet When I Said I Do — a No. 1, Grammy-nominated hit from 1999 — and the couple have been married since 1991, a partnership that Hartman Black highlighted in an interview when she said, "Clint's very romantic. I mean, look at what he writes!"
For viewers who know Drew from other work, the casting lands with context: Drew is a Grey's Anatomy alum and is also known for Everwood, and in taking this role she brings a personal history that she has spoken about publicly.
The friction in the story isn’t just on screen. Drew has described a period in her own life when becoming a mother felt like an enormous public and private risk. "One of the biggest, scariest risks that I leaped into was choosing to become a mom," she said. "I took the risk, and I was pregnant. I was probably about six months pregnant, and I had been having panic attacks."
She has said she was "so caught up with anxiety about all of it" and that the fear pushed her to reach out to family for steadiness. "I remember writing to my dad and just saying, ‘Do you have any advice or any wisdom or any Scripture that you can point me toward that could help combat this fear? Because it’s really overwhelming,'" she recalled. Her father returned Bible verses along with a piece of practical counsel: "But the biggest thing that stuck with me was that the best way to combat fear is with aggressive gratitude," Drew said.
She explained why that qualifier mattered: "He calls it ‘aggressive’ because it’s not always easy when you first start practicing gratitude because sometimes you’re just in a mind spiral, and all you can see is the scary and the dark." Drew added, "And honestly, I started practicing that, and it has been the greatest combatant of fear in my life for me."
That personal arc — moving from fear to a daily practice of gratitude — mirrors Ali Corley’s story of rebuilding after loss. Drew is also a mother of two, Micah Emmanuel and Hannah Mali Rose, born in 2012 and 2014 respectively, details she has referenced while discussing how real-life anxieties inform her work.
The involvement of the Black family adds another layer intended to bridge song and story: Clint Black said he felt compelled to write something the couple could sing together, asking himself, "What would we say to each other in front of God and the world?" Lisa Hartman Black also painted a domestic picture during the conversation, noting, "We’re home. He comes in to the room wherever I was and he goes, ‘I'd love to play this song I've written,’" a moment that became the seed for both the hit and now the film their names help shepherd.
What audiences should expect next is straightforward: the movie debuts on Lifetime at 8 p.m. on May 23, and it will be available to stream the following day, giving viewers two easy ways to judge whether Drew’s off-screen work on fear and gratitude translates into the on-screen life-affirming performance the material aims for.
The short answer to the question the casting poses — can an actor who has openly wrestled with panic bring believable hope to a story about rebuilding? — is yes: Drew has said she used a specific practice, aggressive gratitude, to move through fear, and she carries that conviction into a role about moving forward after loss, which viewers will see when the film premieres.
