BB Exclusive: Kali Hawk Talks her New Holiday Movie, The Truth About Christmas
This coming Sunday, November 25, Freeform will air the first of its three Holiday movie, The Truth About Christmas. The movie follows Jillian, a political consultant who is cursed by Santa and can only tell the truth this Holiday season.
Kali Hawk plays the lead, Jillian and we had the amazing opportunity to sit down with the actress and talk about the movie. During our chat, we also talked about authenticity, the comedic side of her character and so much more. Check it out below.
On her new movie, The Truth About Christmas and her character, Jillian:
“The movie is called, The Truth About Christmas and it deals with the thing we’re all facing this Holiday season, which is how truthful should you be and how do you keep the Holiday spirit intact without telling a little white lie.
My character, she works as a political consultant. Obviously, the world of politics is full of spin and marketing and advertising. The clever artistry of words is something that she has mastered. But when she’s stricken by this curse from Santa and she is not able to even tell a little white lie, which is sort of her main skill in the political arena, it changes the landscape of human relations for her. Ultimately it gives way to her becoming her more authentic self, which we are all striving to be for the Holiday season and the rest of the year.”
On how important it is for her to be authentic in today’s society:
“I feel like at all times feeling the freedom to be yourself and to be accepted and loved by the people who matter most to you, that’s the ultimate goal of a life. I’ve read something recently that said, ‘The measure of success is being able to wake up everyday and spend it as you please’. And how do you know how to spend the day if you don’t ask yourself the real questions? Many times, people don’t allow themselves to be and do what they want to be because they feel somewhat restrained by society. But if everyone in society is feeling those limitations to some degree then maybe we should all give ourselves a little bit of a break and cut each other some slack during the holiday season and every day.”
On how she was able to bring the comedic side of Jillian to life:
“It was really hard to figure out what the level of it should be. Luckily, the director, Jay Karas, he’s directed a lot of comedy things and he directed a lot of great stand up specials. There was a feeling of safety in being able to try whatever I wanted to try. Still speaking of that authenticity, even in the lies that Jillian tells, she’s still trying to tell them as authentically as possible. Even in the comedy as an actor I am still trying to have it be as real as possible.
In comedies, generally, the person who’s getting all the laughs doesn’t know what they are doing is funny. They are just living through mishap after mishap and it’s sort of this shock that they get this laugh out of the audience, but that only works if you wing it as fully as humanly as possible. I feel on things making this movie, I had so many bruises doing all the physical comedy. We had to go as far as we could just so that it could as truthful and as funny as possible.”
You can check out the rest of our interview below. Make sure to watch the movie on Sunday and then check the site on Monday, November 26 for Part 2 of our interview with Kali.
Source: Freeform/Albert Camicioli
On if there was a scene from the movie that how it was originally written was not how she played it out in the movie:
“Originally, there was a scene in the movie where my character goes out with her boyfriend George’s brother, Blake and he takes her to some talent competition and she was supposed to do some karaoke or something. And, the network was like, ‘We’ve seen that done before. Are there any other kinds of skills that Kali might have that she would be willing to do?’ Me and the director started to talk about it and I told him a story of how I had done stand up before I had come to LA and then one day, I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore.
As we talked about that story, he [the Director] was like, ‘We have to put that in. We have to put that into the movie.’ There is a whole stand up section that wasn’t originally in the movie, but it came out of conversation with the director about my real life and about his experience directing all these great stand-up specials. We picked some of that and immersed it with the character and with the storyline of the movie and created that. I’m a little bit scared to see what it is going to be like.”
On how The Truth About Christmas then other Holiday movies being released this year:
“The Truth About Christmas is different than a lot of the holiday movies coming out because it is a little bit darker. It has light moments and we certainly tried to make light out of the teariest nature of what’s happening in the movie. But it deals with something that everyone who is an adult in the working world can understand. How much are you able to blur the lines before you lose yourself? How far can you take things in the direction of pursuing success without losing what was important to you that drove you to success in the first place?
It’s kind of A Star is Born but for the working individual where you have to be careful with what you wished for and then you get it and it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. How do you backtrack and still maintain the things that you want without having to spend too much time mourning what you lost or trying to get it back? That’s pretty much the journey of every adult life. Who are you, what are you, when does this day of existential crisis end? Never. I guess that’s the difference.
This movie is a little more existential, but it is funnier in the sense that there’s that formula; comedy equals tragedy plus time. When you see this movie and can relate to all the crazy things that are happening to my character and how her boyfriend still loves her and still wants to be with her. How confusing it is for everyone watching her go through this journey, but how much she is ultimately still given support. I think that is something that is the universal theme. I think people can connect to that during Christmas time or really during anytime. I think this movie they are going to play throughout the month and I wouldn’t be surprised it if ends up being one of those movies that can get play outside of the Holiday season just because it is so universal to grown up life.”