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00:00That was absolutely one of the most exciting aspects of this movie was sort of looking at a way that we could tell
00:08Santa's story that we've never quite seen before right you've seen him a certain way. I always thought that the great
00:15exciting idea for this is
00:17What if you could sort of pull back the curtain and see what he's really like so all of those
00:23Aspects of this came from that sort of seed idea
00:27Hiram Garcia came up with this. This was his brainchild and
00:32He brought Chris and I on board early with DJ
00:36And and I think that was the idea that got us all going right in the very beginning
00:40You know
00:41I think when we did start working on this one of the goals wasn't actually when we were going around pitching it
00:46We always ended the pitch with saying our hope was
00:49To tell a story that really inspired people turned Christmas on its head in the mythology
00:53But also to create the definitive Santa Claus
00:57the version that there's been so many good Santa Claus's but to find one that really
01:01Took a connection with the audience to the next level and brought a coolness out to Santa that as a big Christmas fan
01:07I always knew Santa's guy and I feel like we did that with JK and especially the way Jake and vision and out screen
01:13JK's performance as Santa is everything we dreamed it more. I mean, I think it actually provides a lot of fun
01:18There's such great Christmas lore folklore
01:21The stories we all grew up with but internationally, you know what I mean when you hear some of these
01:26Creatures and stories and mythology. It almost begs for some sort of you know, action-adventure movie
01:32So it's it's not not quite as hard as you think I agree. I also feel that
01:38Really starts with the material of course coming out of Hiram's brain and then Chris Morgan
01:43Cracking it and Jake coming in and cracking it and putting it together on the page
01:47So the material itself, I think lent to lent itself to big action scale, which you typically don't see in Christmas movies
01:55Creating the definitive Santa Claus all of these actors who obviously all incredibly talented came in loving Christmas
02:02but actually everyone being the perfect actor for that particular role and
02:07Then on top of all that I think you sprinkle in something that Jake
02:12Inherently does in his films
02:13I've had the privilege of working with him now three times on the first two Jumanji movies and now read one is heart and
02:19There's so much heart in this movie. Like that's over. That's
02:23Often an overstatement. I think in storytelling in Hollywood, but it's true. It's something like this
02:27I think the idea and it's one of my favorite parts of the movie where JK is Santa Claus reminds me that it's our job
02:33To see the best in people and look at that child look beyond if they're on the naughty list like this guy
02:40Look beyond it and look at the kid in everybody action
02:44humor pathos and a story that has an underlying theme of
02:49Goodness can prevail and lead to better things. It's it was you know, it's a no-brainer to say absolutely
02:55Yes, I want to be involved
02:56I had spoken to Jake and he's like I said, is there any training or do you need me to like prep anything?
03:02He said no, I think maybe she's gonna like throw a kick and maybe a punch. Maybe that's it. That's it
03:08You're just the boss lady and then that's all it's gonna be and I said, okay great. No problem
03:11I show up to the set
03:13we're you know doing the costume fittings and everything and then the stunt coordinator comes in and he says I just want to give
03:18You a little bit of a previz of what we're gonna do
03:21He shows me this like entire action scene and I'm like, I my face just turned white
03:28And then I was like, okay, let's do this
03:30And I soon as I got the sticks in my hands
03:32It was like muscle memory kicked in and I just it was like I was alive again
03:36So actually thank you for that. I hadn't done it in a long time
03:40But it it just came back to me and I just I love watching action movies
03:45I grew up watching them and it actually being on the screen doing action is so exciting
03:51And I think that it it gets kids excited. It gets girls excited gets women excited. So
03:57You know, it's nice that you still got it
03:59I've never really played a proper villain before I've definitely played people who are dark and twisted
04:05But the film kind of hinges on on this kidnapping and it was really it was really cool to feel like
04:11I had a part in the movie. That was was sort of
04:16Moving things in in any sort of direction. That was that was really fun
04:20I liked those stakes and I I just I love that this movie is so fun. I mean, there's a lot of heart in it
04:26There's a lot of action in it, but at the end of the day
04:28I think you sit down and it's a really fun watch so playing someone who is a villain
04:33But also maintaining like a sense of levity and fun with the whole thing was also really lovely. So it was great
04:39I'll play I'll play villain anytime the character is more or less the suit, right?
04:45So I tried to play against the suit make him actually play him as feminine as
04:52Narcissistic and self-indulging as possible and suddenly that mixture
04:56Became a bit disturbing
04:59So so but the funny thing about Krampus is that he has the same objective as
05:05As Nick they want the same. It's just the method punishing or rewarding and sometimes you need a bit of slapping
05:12he really does such a spectacular job as Krampus in our story of the mythology of the brother of
05:18Santa but also the prosthetics that he was wearing
05:23From Joel Harlow's, you know an Academy Award winner and you really see it and but if the challenge is
05:30There has to be so much life going on
05:33In his eyes because everything else is just these incredible prosthetics and because he's such a superior actor
05:39Like you felt that and you feel that in the movie. So anyway, I just hats off to you, man
05:44I really did a great job. You know, we never even considered doing it CG
05:48We always wanted to do it that way and I think that it was
05:52You know, I had never really done that kind of work before I'd never had
05:57anything in a movie with that level of
06:00You know kind of complex makeup character makeup like that and like DJ says we've found
06:06like one of the world's truly great guys to design it with us and
06:10It was so gratifying that everybody in that sequence. It's a big sequence in the movie at Krampus's
06:18You know house kind of and yeah
06:22He's out there you can say lair and there's all of these characters, you know
06:26There's a whole bunch of these like very sophisticated makeup characters walking around
06:33There's a lot of these movies. There is a lot of CG
06:36there's a lot of CG in this movie, but not there and usually when you're doing that kind of work it puts a lot of
06:44Additional kind of acting work on the guys, right?
06:46So like what are you looking at? Imagine what you're looking at? Trust me that it's gonna be
06:51Line up with what they're playing and all of those things
06:54But when you go in and you actually see all those faces there
06:58It just energizes everybody in the best possible way and then to add on to what DJ is saying
07:05when you get an actor like this who's like
07:09Takes on the challenge that Christopher did of like, how do I make this performance shine through so that it's not eaten by the suit?
07:17So that the character isn't really the suit we've spent months developing that look but then he's acting it and it's just this
07:24Explosive energetic thing that you know lights everybody up. So it was one of the great kind of fun
07:31Sequences I've ever had a chance to do and you know
07:34I grew up on movies like labyrinth and never-ending story where it was all practical and it was real and those those things
07:40Stuck with you as a kid because it was things that you never saw in your normal life
07:44And I know now that every other movie is just loaded with CG and in a way
07:48There's so much of it that when you do get a film that goes
07:51Practical it still sticks with you in that same way because it's still rare like it was when I was a kid and and that that's
07:57What makes it feel not just you know, like a real character a real performance, but it's just it's it's it's not
08:04but that's that's what this movie does a great job of tapping into the
08:07The heart and humanity that that you're supposed to feel during the holidays that it is, you know, goodwill towards men. It is about
08:14Remembering priorities and certainly for the folks that are looking for forgiveness offering them those second chances
08:20Just getting family together would be our number one
08:24greatest family
08:25Tradition and I know it's simplistic but you know a lot of times when I was growing up
08:29my dad was always on the road and he wasn't always home for Christmas and
08:33In the business that we're in sometimes it requires us to work over the holidays
08:37So for me just to have the entire family together, that's the most important thing
08:42You know, we we would write letters to Santa on Christmas Eve
08:46But I was saying earlier that you know, I'm one of four and my siblings and I are all very close close in age
08:52close as people
08:54But on Christmas Eve, we would all decide whose room are we gonna sleep in?
08:58We would have a little sleepover in somebody's room and we would
09:01You know the old TV that had the VCR don't encourage we get our we get our copy of Crocodile Dundee
09:11For those of you who don't know there was a Crocodile Dundee joke
09:14No that the fun thing was picking what Christmas movie are we gonna watch?
09:17Yeah
09:18That that was always the fun thing picking the movie and then going upstairs and just trying
09:22Desperately to fall asleep, but then getting all the wake up together at the same time for us
09:26We didn't grow up with any traditions. And so it was sort of a free-for-all
09:31But I have a child now and I realized that you can start your own traditions
09:35You can create them and you know, I give him a gift
09:38Of course, he gets gifts but you know important thing now is I always take him on an experience as a gift
09:44Just learning that that being together and and doing something together
09:48Even if it's simple like going to the Empire State Building or going to see the Rockettes something like that
09:53So he and he remember I didn't think he would really remember because kids really want things, you know
09:59But he said to me, you know last year
10:02he said oh remember going to the Empire State Building for that experience that you gave me and
10:06It really made me feel like oh this really works
10:09It's like when you try to teach sign language to babies
10:11You're like do you want more and it just never works and then one day out of nowhere?
10:15They just do this and you're like, whoa, the light bulb went off. So to me it's Christmas is about
10:21Togetherness, I mean not unlike what these guys said
10:24But also even if you didn't grow up with a tradition or with a faith that you can create that
10:29You know wherever you are and and at any moment in your life when I was probably I have an older sister two years older
10:36She was probably six and I was four and and my little brother was a baby, of course on Christmas morning
10:42You know, we're up like before the crack of dawn bothering our parents and getting them out of bed
10:47You know, I think that was the Christmas
10:49That my mom just said go make some oatmeal
10:55And and my sister that you know, she's the oldest she's this the female so she's the assistant mom
11:01You know we go so from every Christmas from then on my sister and I would get up
11:06We would make the oatmeal and after we eat the oatmeal
11:10Then we're allowed to open the stockings from Santa and then we wait for mom dad to wake up
11:17To what to open all the rest of the presents so it taught us it taught us a real kind of
11:23Self-sufficiency and it was a you know, it was it was a real sort of
11:26Gave my sister especially a sense of responsibility
11:30Togetherness being with family. I have three brothers and three sisters and it was always a busy day in the hunt household
11:37Well any day was but Christmas was always a really special day
11:40It was like the one day that my dad was actually home from work
11:43Maybe for a few hours
11:44Somebody would call him because something broke in their house and he'd be there fix it
11:47He was an incredibly talented craftsman handyman electrician
11:51And now when we're all together, I always say it's always fun until you hear the phrase. What's that supposed to mean?
11:58The other family tradition of
12:00Walking on eggshells. So yeah, that's our family tradition. Yes
12:05It's all about family and being together with people but I have a very fun holiday party every year
12:10That is that is my own personal. It's not this year. So this is no one's not been invited but
12:17Kitchen is being renovated. Don't worry
12:202020-25 or 2025 will be very fun. But yeah, that's what that's what I do
12:25I'm stopping the echo party
12:28What I need I need I need a big
12:31Santa chocolate
12:33There's a hole inside and a Christmas movie and have this big chocolate and like that and I and that's Christmas for me