The Big Picture

The movie EXmas has a fresh and unique plot that hasn’t been seen in other Christmas movies before. Shooting the dinner scene where everyone is high on cookies was a fun and enjoyable experience for the cast. The characters in the film, despite their differences, have the potential to work things out and have a successful relationship if they communicate and listen to each other.

[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for EXmas.]

The Christmas comedy EXmas, which is streaming on Amazon Freevee, follows Graham (Robbie Amell) as he surprises his family for the holidays only to find his ex-fiancée Ali (Leighton Meester) already celebrating with them. Not one to back down from a fight, they both decide to stick it out, through a stolen baby Jesus, a rambunctious goat and some THC-laced cookies, learning that maybe they don’t really hate each other after all.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Meester and Amell talked about how much they enjoyed this new fresh take on a Christmas rom-com, shooting the scene when the family unknowingly gets high off the holiday cookies, leaning into the fun of the comedy, working with a goat, their rather intrusive kissing scene, and whether this couple might have a chance of staying together.

Exmas Release Date November 17, 2023 Director Jonah Feingold Cast Leighton Meester, Robbie Amell, Michael Hitchcock, Kathryn Greenwood Runtime 93 minutes Main Genre Comedy
Collider: This is such a fun set up for a movie, with the ex who still loves the family showing up at the holidays and the son who hadn’t planned to be there also showing up because it could lead to endless scenarios. When you read the script, what were the aspects of this story that each of you most connected with? Was there a moment you were most looking forward to getting to shoot?

ROBBIE AMELL: I really liked that it was fresh. I hadn’t seen this. In nine million Christmas movies, I hadn’t seen this actual plot.

LEIGHTON MEESTER: What I was excited about was all the sitting at the dinner table, like with the board games and trying to be competitive with one another. There is a lost karaoke scene. I don’t wanna say, “Hey, there’s a scene that no one gets to see,” but there was. And then, as the THC is entering their bloodstream and we all are sitting around a dinner table, it was just so exciting to think about. Actually, I wanna do it all again. It was like super fun to shoot and there was so much joy. And the romantic element is pretty fun, as well.

Image via Justina Mintz/Amazon Freevee

Their Real Reaction to Faking Getting Stoned
What was it like to shoot that scene at the dinner table where everybody except for Graham is high on cookies? Leighton, what’s it like to be in the experience of having to fake laugh for however many takes that was? And Robbie, is it weird to just be the one sitting there, watching everybody acting crazy?

MEESTER: I feel like [Robbie] got crazy too, but not because [he was] stoned. [He was] just able to laugh. There was a lot of suppressing laughs. It was not fake laughing. There was one round of camera movement in particular where they put a low angle fish eye camera in people’s face and being off camera while Kathryn [Greenwood], Veronika [Slowikowska] and Michael [Hitchock] would just go and say some lines. It was very, very funny. We had to try not to step on their lines. And being stoned is very easy for me. That’s my normal state.

AMELL: I was jealous. It was so fun to watch and a little bit sad not to be a part of, but at the same time, it was a great time to be an audience member. Like Leighton said, there was not a lot of fake laughing. It was very funny. It was a pretty late part of the day. We had been shooting the lead up to that scene with all the food, so everybody was loopy and just leaned into it. It was very fun.

Those big family dinner moments are always so fun to watch, but you hear actors talk about how they’re not necessarily the most fun to shoot because they can take so long with so many people in them. Is it hard to pace yourself through those moments where you’re supposed to keep having fun, but maybe you don’t want to after 12 hours?

AMELL: For better or worse, we were strapped for time, so we couldn’t take a long time on anything. We shot the whole movie in 21 or 22 days.

MEESTER: Yeah. I didn’t ever feel tired of a scene. I was always enjoying it. I was never like, “Let’s get out of here.” I don’t know. I just enjoyed it. There was all this food and by the time you’re done, obviously by that point, it’s cold. I was eating cold stuffing for eight hours, but I wasn’t even over it. I was like, “I don’t want it to be over.” And then, the cookies that are the offending cookies with the THC in them, I took down 30 of those that day. I had a lot of cookies that day. When you have it as part of your take while you’re saying a line, then it’s in the scene and you have to keep doing it. It’s fun.

Image via Amazon Freevee

Was Her Goat Co-Star A Challenge to Work With?
Leighton, you had the pleasure or displeasure, depending on its temperament, of working with a goat in this. What was it like to work with the goat? Did you have a similar feeling about the goat as your character did, or were you better friends with the goat?

MEESTER: I don’t have a fear of goats.

AMELL: Anymore.

MEESTER: No, I don’t really have feelings about goats. They’re just there. I know that they’re important, but I don’t interact with them often. But I do think that they’re cool. I’m more fascinated. I was like, “I’m gonna be friends with this goat,” but the goat didn’t wanna be my friend. I was like, “Oh, well, I guess we’ll just be scene partners, and then we’ll say goodbye at the end.” That was our relationship. He just wanted to keep it professional and have that boundary. He just wanted me to hold food out. He did what he was told. He’s not a lap goat. He wasn’t trying to get pets. He was like, “Do you have a red bowl that has food in it? Otherwise, I don’t wanna talk to you.”

Can Ali and Graham Make Their Relationship Work?
By the end of this movie, after everything that these two go through to get on the same page with each other, do you have hope for them? Do you think that, as long as they actually keep listening to each other and communicating with each other, things could work out for them?

MEESTER: You hit the nail on the head. Isn’t that what we all want? We’re like, “Let’s just communicate and be respectful to one another, and maybe the relationship will work out.” You hope that is how it works. I think they don’t even realize, because they’ve been blinded by their own egos, but everyone else in their life – her friends and his family certainly – is like, “You’re meant to be together.” And they’re like, “But we didn’t get along.” In this case, his family is part of the package, and that part of the package is what she wants the most. She didn’t realize that she’d hit the jackpot. So yeah, if they could get along, I don’t know. They’re a little competitive and bickery, which is fun too.

Shooting A Kissing Scene with An Audience
Robbie, what’s it like to have to do a kissing scene where not only is the typical crew standing around you guys as actors, but also the entire family of these characters is watching and providing commentary? What is that like to have to get through and not just crack up?

AMELL: It actually worked for the scenes because they are supposed to be intrusive and annoying, and I am supposed to be blocking them out. The more difficult part was trying not to get our fake snow on your face while you’re trying to do a kissing scene and you’re like, “Well, this is gonna be unusable because there’s a bunch of fake snow sitting on the end of my nose now.” Or you’re dealing with the sound of the fan shooting the fake snow into the air. Whatever you think the problems are, it’s not that. Shooting a Christmas movie in June is the problem.

I rather enjoyed your Christmas sweater with Santa and the reindeer on it.

AMELL: That makes one of us.

I always enjoy a good Christmas sweater. Did you get any say in the Christmas sweater? Do you enjoy a good Christmas sweater?

AMELL: My wife loves Christmas, so I have a handful of Christmas sweaters and even Christmas onesies. This was great because Graham’s a bit of a grinch and he doesn’t have his bags, so he’s stuck not only wearing old Christmas sweaters or old clothes, but he’s also pretending he loves Christmas or trying to show everybody how into the holiday spirit he is. And then, I had to wear my dad’s suit for the church scene. Even Michael was like, “This doesn’t look like it belonged to me, at all. Whose suit is this?”

MEESTER: Dads don’t usually have tailored suits.

AMELL: Yeah, but this looked like Steve Harvey’s suit. It was huge. But it was really fun. I actually liked that side of the character, having to deal with the weird wardrobe.

EXmas is available to stream at Amazon Freevee.

Watch on Amazon Freevee.