Red One: a Christmas film like never before
With Christmas around the corner, there’s festive cheer and joy beginning all around, especially in Hollywood. Now, some people might say that November is still early for Christmas, but who cares? Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans team up together for the first time in Red One; a Christmas film that no-one has ever seen before. After Santa Claus – Code Name: RED ONE – is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security (Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.
On portraying Santa Claus in a different way, director Jake Kasdan said “One of the most exciting aspects of this movie was looking at a way that we could tell Santa’s story that we’ve never quite seen before, right? You’ve seen him a certain way your whole life, and we always thought that the great, exciting idea for this was “What if you could sort of pull back the curtain and see what he’s really like?”
Producer Hiram Garcia said “Yeah, I think when we did start working on this, one of the goals was our hope to tell a story that really inspired people. We wanted to turn Christmas on its head in the mythology (space), but also create the definitive Santa Claus. There’s been so many good Santa Clauses, but to find one that really made a connection with the audience and brought a coolness that I always felt Santa had, J.K.’s (Simmons) performance is everything we dreamed and more.”
The villains of the story aren’t your typical villains either. Played by Kiernan Shipka and Kristofer Hivju, they loved every moment of it. Shipka mentioned “It was really fun. I loved it. I’ve never played a proper villain before. I’ve definitely played people who are dark and twisted, but this film kind of hinges on (Santa’s) kidnapping, so it was really cool to feel like I had a part in this movie that was moving it in a direction. I liked those stakes. I love that this movie is so fun. There’s a lot of heart. There’s a lot of action, but at the end of the day I think you just sit down and it’s a really lovely watch. So playing someone who was a villain, but also maintaining a sense of levity with the whole thing was great. I’ll play a villain anytime.“
Hivju added ” For me, this character is more or less the suit, right? I tried to play against the suit to make him actually more feminine, narcissistic and as self-indulging as possible. Suddenly the mixture becomes a bit disturbing. The funny thing about Krampus is that he has the same objective as (Santa Claus). They want the same thing. He just has a method that’s more punishing.”
Dwayne Johnson chimed into this comment too saying “I also want to say, for Chris and I, when we were on set and we had the privilege of spending many, many days with Kristofer as Krampus, it is one of the most impressive things we’ve ever seen. He’s just massive, and it goes back to the spectacular job of the mythology of our story, but also the prosthetics he was wearing.“
An early Christmas treat for all the family, Red One is in UK cinemas from 6th November 2024.