Holidazed Cast Talk Christmas Karaoke, Holiday Traditions, and Family Dynamics
In Hallmark+’s Holidazed, five families who all live in the same cul de sac in Oak Bay, Oregon deal with the joys and stress of coming home for the holidays. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with the cast about the new limited series.
From family dynamics to reuniting with old friends, there are various modern holiday stories explored in Holidazed. “There's nothing typical about family and I think this story really points to that, especially [how] it speaks to the modern family in the most real and relevant ways,” Ser’Darius Blain told me. “We speak on gender and age gaps and sexuality and beliefs and all of those sorts of things and they all comprise these incredible family units individually and then all of us as a whole.”
“A lot of people can relate to going back home for the holidays, but not too many people talk about the friend dynamic so to have that as an element in Hallmark moment is just wonderful to me,” shared Noemi Gonzalez, with Holland Roden adding: “We touch on all different types of awkwardness between all of our relationships and rekindling, not even in a romantic way, but just in seeing someone you haven't seen in a while. There's a lot of dynamics there.”
Between sisterly bonds and communication issues, many of the cast members could relate to their characters. “One of the things that I really loved was that [it] felt like a relationship with things I explore in my own life,” said Rachelle Lefevre. “I'm the oldest of four sisters so there were definitely moments where we were filming scenes where I was like, ‘Oh God, this is so familiar. Like this is eerily familiar.”
“Communication in my family is very similar to what Ted goes through. There's a lot of assumptions being made and we're usually wrong. I don't know why we continue to do that,” shared Osric Chau. “We have issues communicating. Me with my parents, me with my brothers, always every direction and I don't know why that is. I think it's easier to just assume like, oh no, they're not going to want that and then they do, or like they're going to hate that but then they love it.”
This film even features a surprising relationship for Loretta Devine’s character. “It's kind of hilarious because initially when my agent sent me the offer they told me that I'd be working with Loretta Devine and Dennis Haysbert [and] I was like, ‘Great, I would love to play their son.’ So much to my chagrin and surprise when I finally read the script as I'm headed to the table read on a plane […] and I was like, ‘Okay, wait, where's this young boyfriend of hers?’ And then I was like, ‘Oh, oh,” said Blain at realizing he was playing Devine’s young boyfriend. “It was kind of a hilarious meet cute. I got an opportunity to work with Loretta and to work with these two legends who I've looked up to for a very, very long time and the rest was history.”
Meanwhile Roden and Gonzalez got to channel their holiday spirit in some festive karaoke. “We were like, ‘Do we do this? Do we rehearse? Yeah, let's go ham!’ We went to each other's hotel rooms,” said Gonzalez, with Roden adding: “I call it Romy and Michele. We swanned it out. We did a lot of bold moves for two adults.”
Gonzalez continued: “Then we pitched it on the set the next day ‘cause it was on the pages one way but then we wanted to really have the history of this friendship show. I think it was really cool to have that dynamic behind the scenes and then bring it. They were able to obviously edit it to what it is and it's really fun. I really, really like that moment.”
Holidazed is streaming on Hallmark+.
