BB Exclusive: The Truth About Christmas’ Kali Hawk Breaks Down Certain Moments from her Holiday Movie
Last night, November 25, Freeform aired their first of three Holiday movies, The Truth About Christmas. Starring Kali Hawk and Damon Dayoub, the story follows political consultant Jillian (Hawk), who is cursed by Santa to never tell a lie.
There were a number of big things that happened in last night’s Holiday movie and we were able to sit down with Kali and talk about the big things. Our interview does contain spoilers, so please read at your own risk
On her initial reaction to having to con a small child out her toy in the movie: “It’s so terrible, but it is so brilliant in how terrible it really is. I don’t know why. I love the little girl who played that role, her name is Adaya. I loved working with her because children just have this innocence. Even as an actress you could see how excited she was to be in a scene, how excited she was to be in a movie, so working with her it did transport me back to that time. Being a beginner and having that beginner excitement. I just tried to think that in the moment of doing that scene, what would it be like if you had that same excitement and that same innocence and someone tried to take it from you? That’s kind of what I used as a substitute for the toy that I was trying to con her out of. I thought, ‘What if the toy was something really, really important. How much more authentic would you have to be to try to get her to let it go?’”
On how she came up with the dialogue for the stand-up scene: “I made up all of that stuff in the moment and the director, Jay was writing down the jokes that he liked. Basically, we had a bare room with extras and they were real people, so they’re just there, and I started talking it out I knew what the overall arc of that moment was supposed to be. It’s just her recalling the moments she has experienced throughout the movie and putting them into this universal context that anyone in the audience or anyone watching the movie can be able to relate to. I went up there and started doing stuff and it just became this other thing. Then take after take the director would come and he’d tell me which jokes he wanted me to do and then out of that we crafted a set. Then I had to repeat it and that was the hardest part because once you told a joke, and it was funny, you don’t want to tell that joke again. Once you have that monologue set that you have to keep doing it, so it was a fun adventure. I am happy they let me do that because I don’t think that’s the way it would normally go.”
You can read the rest of our interview with Kali under the jump. The Truth About Christmas will air a couple of more times before the season is over, so make sure to check it out if you missed last night’s premiere. For those who did not, let us know what you thought of the movie in the comments below.
On how it doesn’t have the traditional ending with the lead having to pick between love or profession: “That was so important. This is two-fold so I will try to make it short as possible. My costar, Damon Dayoub, who’s just wonderful. He’s as manly and as gentlemanly as can be. He has a wonderful wife and daughter, he’s just a good dude. Everyone I know that has met him has wonderful things to say about him. When I heard he was going to be my guy in the movie I thought ‘Okay, great!’ and when I read the character originally it seemed like a type of a guy, more of a caricature of someone. But he has such sensitivity and he brought so much sensitivity to his portrayal of George that it changed the movie. There was a point where we changed some of the angsty scenes. My character did have to make a choice and I really advocated for the idea that he shouldn’t be sacrificed.
I just thought many times what gets promoted to us women under the title of feminism is that in order to be a feminist you have to be self-centered. You have to chose yourself and your goals and ambitions ahead of the feelings of the men in your life. And, I just thought ‘I’ve seen that before and that’s not what’s happening in the world’. All the women I know who I really look up to, they have success and they have family. They have success and they have a heart. It is possible to show that because that is the reality, that is the truth. That’s what everybody is hoping for. When I brought up how important that was for me to be able to show that it doesn’t have to be my goals and the rest of the world be damned. I felt it was important to play a female character who was not shown in that way. When I talked about that with the director, Damon kept hovering in the background kind of as a support and I thought about this throughout the movie anytime I would ask for anything on behalf of my character or on behalf of portraying a professional woman with goals and ambitions in a more empathetic light, Damon would always be hovering in the background giving support. Sort of like backup in case I needed someone to go ‘Hey, she’s right’. Luckily, our director is a very sensitive and caring guy so he’s open to the dialogue. But just even that experience that I had of being a female lead in a movie advocating on behalf of the portrayal of women in the most authentic way possible and get the support of the men on the set, behind the scenes and in front of the camera, it was such a unique and such a supportive experience. That’s what I wanted people to feel when they saw the movie. I wanted them to see the truth of that and I think that is the thing that really has touched people the most whether they articulate it that way or not. It’s the truth about Christmas, but it’s just the truth about our human experience and it’s show in such a lovely way. I am really proud of this movie.
Originally, George proposes to my character and she turns him down. That was how it was written and when that time came, after the way Damon had played that character, I said to the director, ‘It can’t be this way. After how he’s loved her, after how he’s cared for her and advocated for her to his family. After the way he’s just been there, every character in the movie loves George so much that even when he’s not there he’s all we can talk about. She just can’t throw him away’ and Jay [Director] was like, ‘Well, maybe it is the feminist choice. She is deciding to put herself and her needs first’ and I was like, ‘Woah, woah, woah. That’s not the idea of feminism that I would like to participate in promoting’. I know that’s what’s generally there but I don’t think that in order to be my authentic self as a woman I have to stamp on this man’s feelings in front of his family. There must be some other way. Then I told him [Jay], ‘Hey, think of it like this’ and he said, ‘Well, it could be a very humane choice. She is wanting to spare him’ and I was like, ‘Think of it like this, you’re a married guy. What if while you were proposing to your wife, she gave you a list of reasons of why that’s probably not the best idea. She probably got it all wrong and then she goes on a tangent on her goals. She just steamrolls over the fact you just bared yourself to her in a vulnerable fashion’ and he went, ‘Say no more, I get what you mean’. He then went away and wrote that scene while we were filming. He then came back and said, ‘How about this. How about he doesn’t actually get to the proposal. You see it coming and then the humane thing is to sort of have that conversation. And, it spares him, but still the respect and the compassion can be at the forefront.’ I was like, ‘Thank God!’ because I didn’t know what the resolution would be. I didn’t know how to solve the scene, but I knew something needed to be done so it wasn’t a woman going, ‘Hey, you know what I’m an independent woman. Screw you.’ No, that is not who we are and that’s something that we need to see. The truth of women being themselves. Being independent and being able to care and support. Men have feelings, too, and I think that feminism isn’t about disregarding anyone’s feelings over the other feelings It was nice to have a director understand that and be skillful enough to go and rewrite the scene in a way that made me draw a sigh of relief. It was nice to feel that understood and that supportive”.
Photo source: Freeform