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Fred Claus Press Conference
Do you prefer playing the villainous roles?
Kevin Spacey: “No. Sometimes people say, ‘Isn’t it great that you are at this place in your career where you can pick the parts that you want to play?’ That is only true in the sense that you can pick the parts that they offer. You can pick the parts that you are available to do, given the schedule that I have is primarily now based in the theatre in London.
It’s a funny thing because I suppose when people see movies, they then label the character bad, evil, villainous, or good or triumphant or heroic. The truth is that when you are playing a character, you don’t ever label a character. You don’t say, ‘Oh, now I’m playing this villain.’ You are playing a human being who might do bad things, and might do good things. I think what I liked about Clyde in this film is that even though he starts off in a certain place, he ends up in an entirely different place. There is actually a journey. I reject the idea that he’s a bad guy. Yeah, he’s kicking Santa’s ass, but at the end he actually is, they are finally using spreadsheets and it’s efficient. It’s gotten much better.”
Vince Vaughn: “He's kind of a catalyst too. Without him, I don't know if these brothers would have mended. They reflect both sides of each other.”
How many times did you have to come down that chimney?
Vince Vaughn: “Here is the good news. Sometimes I would come down the chimney, and that was fine because I would just kind of come down the chimney.
When you see people falling and doing weird stuff? That is a stunt guy named Joe Bucaro, out of Chicago. A lot of actors, it's not fashionable. A lot of actors like to be like, ‘Yeah, I do my stunts.’ I don’t do any of my stuff. I don’t like to do my stunts. I like to have a stunt guy do my stuff. So, Joe will go and fall on his head and then we’ll do some kind of high five thing or something, and then I will lie there and get up. I have sort of a sense memory moment of when I fell when I was much younger. A lot of the harder falls was a stunt guy.”
This is such a stellar cast. Usually in a family Christmas movie you have one big star and the rest are maybe ‘B’ list.
Vince Vaughn: “This movie had a bunch of big stars and me.”
Kevin Spacey: “This sounds like a B list, C list, question (laughing).”
A lot of actors don’t want to do a Christmas movie. What would motivate you to want to participate in this?
Vince Vaughn: “You guys have an answer? Obviously, for me, I am just thrilled to work with all of these guys, truthfully. These are great actors. The thing in doing more comedies, as I get older, comedy sometimes, and especially the way that David does it, the jokes can come out of the circumstances. It’s not so sketchy or just like a sketch show. It really does come from human conditions. When you are fortunate enough to have guys, and the girls like Kathy Bates and Miranda [Richardson] who are in the movie as well, that are really good actors, then you are able to work on such a higher level where it’s funny. But like David said, you approach it dramatically. It makes it better and it makes the movie much better.”
Kevin Spacey: “No, for me I had always wanted to work with Ed Guinn, Ricardo Montalban, Gary Collins. I’m sorry what movie are we? I’m sorry, I got lost (laughing). In my life now, the truth is, I am dedicating myself to doing theatre now more than I have films. Whenever there is a movie that comes along, that can fit around that priority for me, particularly one that has in its cast an actor I got to work with on stage nine years ago in The Iceman Cometh and still to this day gave one of the great performances that I have ever been that close to. And Vince, who I’ve known, but we’ve never worked together. For me, it was a very easy decision to say yes to coming on, having as much fun as we had.
Even though it is in its essence a comedy, I think that what David says about the way in which we worked, the process in which we got to the places, you want to fulfill and check all the comedy boxes. But you also want it to be rooted in something so that by the end of the film an audience walks out and says, ‘Yeah, the movie has a theme. It’s got some ideas to it. It’s got a spirit to it,’ as you always with these kinds of movies do, and there is a kind of lesson to be learned.
I did a movie a bunch of years ago, the only other Christmas movie I’ve done, and it was called The Ref which was a movie that I loved and had a great time. Again, it is a movie that has a slightly twisted way into what is sort of the more traditional and a little more sentimental. I had a blast. We had a really good time. I think the question is, why the hell did you do this film?”
Paul Giamatti: “Why did I do this picture? I have to say, I get a script like this and I’m not thinking ‘Oh, I’m doing a big holiday movie.’ I just got a good script. I got something that was interesting to me. It’s a nice part, a fine director, and then when I hear all the other people doing it, I know it’s going to be a good time. Working with him, I know how great he is. This guy is a great director. I never think of it in terms of, ‘Oh, I’m going to do a holiday picture.’ It just was a good script.”
Page 3:On Keeping the Faith in Santa Claus