Lifetime’s bringer of Yuletide joy celebrates her latest projects with a special Christmas-movie edition of Stupid Questions.
So, what do you get a Christmas movie queen for the holidays?
Let’s start with this sackload of Stupid Questions.
Credit: Lifetime (3); ABC FAMILY
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Using only Christmas-movie cliches, how are you being festive today?
Did you worry that you had peaked in the genre too early?
The cast was phenomenal, the story line was hilarious, and my hair wasridiculous.
ABC Family
We were allowed to be really, really big and broad and funny back then.
But yeah,Holiday in Handcuffsis a tough one to beat.
Although we’re developing one with a dude ranch next year that I’m really excited about.
Lifetime
It involves me doing a lot of horseback riding, which could be pretty dangerous for me.
What do you think the message ofHoliday in Handcuffswas?
Stockholm syndrome can be extra-special this time of year.
Lifetime
It reminded me ofDear Christmas, and how she doesn’t believe love can happen around the holidays.
So, what kind of love blooms over the holidays?
What does Hallmark have to do to win you back?
Maybe a meet-cute at a Christmas tree farm?
Actually, I think it’s more that Hallmark is proprietary with their people.
I’m now a Lifetime girl, and I need to stay in my place.
There’s this division that doesn’t let people cross over, necessarily.
It’s kinda like that.
Hallmark has such returning stars as Lacey Chabert, Candace Cameron Bure, and Tamera Mowry-Housley.
Lifetime has you, Kelly Rowland, and Tiya Sircar.
What would happen if the Lifetime Christmas movie queens ran into the Hallmark Christmas movie queens on the street?
Oh, it’d be brutal.
I mean, we’d be stabbing them with candy canes and strangling them with some tinsel.
I think the Lifetime team could definitely take [Hallmark] except for Candace.
She’s always on Instagram posting about her and her trainer doing a crazy workout.
If we could take Candace out quickly, we could get the rest of them down.
In the old Westerns, you see someone just crack a bottle and use the glass as a weapon.
We could do that with some glass ornaments if we were to get really brutal in a Christmas movie.
[Laughs] Lifetime’s going to be like, “What are youtalkingabout?”
You reunited with Mario by directing his new movie in which he plays a widowed father.
It’s calledFeliz NaviDAD.
There was no alternate title.
We were tied tothat songbecause of the title.
I think the writers came up with the title before they even wrote the script.
As a director, how do you force more holiday cheer out of your actors?
Sometimes you just have to lie to them.
Bribes work really well with actors, just like they do with my children.
It’s just mainly bribes.
I’m really good at faking chemistry, so I will say pretending to be freezing cold.
The most uncomfortable I’ve ever been was on the set ofSanta Con.
I was directing, but I was in parts of it.
We put garbage bags on the windows to make it look like night.
They had to do makeup touch-ups in between every take.
We discovered it was hotter than a Bikram yoga class in there.
It was like 106 degrees.
Which Christmas movie cliches are you still dying to do?
Slip on ice, fall off a ladder, save the town library?
Have I done the slip on the ice?
I did two ice skating scenes, one inHoliday in Handcuffsand one inA Very Nutty Christmas.
What cliche have Inotdone?
I mean, I’ve made cookies.
I’ve made cocktails.
Look, I think I’ve topped it with the running into the inflatable.
Maybe falling off the roof while putting on decorations?
A ladder fall would be fun.
I know thatVanessa Lacheyhas a good one inOnce Upon a Main Street…
In my normal career, I’ve never played pregnant and I’ve never died in a project.
So those are two things I need to check off my bucket list for acting.
I don’t think you’ll get to die in a Christmas movie.
Maybe I’ll fall off the ladder and die and go to heaven and be an angel.
And she has to find love in heaven.
Try being in a glass-blowing studio in Reno, Nevada, in August.
How manyGhostpottery-making jokes did you have to stifle while shooting that scene?
Does your character have an undiagnosed head injury that we’ll find out about inDear Christmas 2?
This was something that we brought up a few times, like, “Really?
She’s dying for love, but she can’t remember this guy at all?”
And he keeps reminding her of how they know each other and she keeps getting it wrong.
Like, “Was it the tuba?
Wait, was it band or orchestra?
Was it chorus?”
I mean, it’s kind of like me.
My short-term memory is much better than my long-term memory.
So I took a little from my own life.
Well, don’t give anything away!
That’s next year’s movie!
I mean, we have to keep coming up with concepts.
People keep watching these things.
So, a nut allergy and a baker it’s not far off.
Oh, there’s very rarely ever any snow.
Or is covered in poinsettias.
If you don’t see snow, you’re going to see poinsettias.
We have a truck full of poinsettias that cover everything mask every plant, flower, ugly corner.
It’s really a movie about poinsettias, if you look close enough.
How is a a Lifetime Christmas movie fan different than aSabrinafan?
The sweater game is probably one thing.
Last year they started thisChristmas Con.
There was nothing about superheroes or scary things.
At most of the Comic-Cons, it’s a lot of Halloween-esque stuff or supernatural.
And this was just like moms bringing their daughters!
And men bringing their wives to come see all the Christmas people!
And everyone smelled like cinnamon.
It was a really lovely con.
So I will say: The fans of the Christmas movies, they step it up a notch.
They’ll bring you cookies, they’ll bring you ornaments.
What I pulled away from your answer is that Lifetime Christmas movie fans smell better thanSabrinafans.
Only because they’re bringing cookies!
SoSabrinamemories tend to be surrounded by cat food smells.
Whereas Christmas movies are more about the cookie and the cinnamon and the pumpkin lattes.
I’ll tell you, I love cookies.
I was like, “I cannot do another take, you guys!”
Eating one of those cookies was enough and eating three ruined my next two meals.
Now that you’re Christmas movie royalty, how much pressure is there to deliver at Christmas?
Do people expect next-level gifts?
My Tacky Sweater Party has become quite iconic.
And in that case, I’ve had to really live up to this Tacky Sweater Party.
And it’s really hard, year after year.
I mean, how far can you really go with a sweater?
It’s not easy to keep trying to one-up yourself.
