Some actors inhabit certain characters from the get go, doing so thanks to some careful and thoughtful preparation which can go above and beyond what’s required.
David Suchet famously compiled an incredibly lengthy psychological profile of the Hercule Poirot character, going through each of Agatha Christie’s books and taking notes before crafting said profile – doing so allowed him to step into the role as if he was born to play it from the get go.
Now it appears Kurt Russell has done something similar, only this time it’s for the role of Santa Claus in Netflix’s “The Christmas Chronicles” films. Out promoting the sequel, filmmaker Chris Columbus tells ComicBook.com that Russell went full-on method in his prep:
“What’s incredible about it is [Russell] truly treats it like method acting. I don’t know if I told you, but he wrote 200 pages of the backstory of Santa Claus. About the mythology, about how he met Mrs. Claus. We couldn’t use [all of it]. And that is his level of commitment. If you talk with him, he’s very serious about this. He approaches it as if he were a method actor playing Santa Claus. And that’s what got me so excited about the first movie, is that you’re given that as a director and you’ve got to run with it. You’ve got to be like, ‘This is a gift to be able to work with a guy who is so committed to his role.’”
The first film arrived in 2018 and offered a more handsome and fun take on Saint Nick. The sequel just debuted on the service and sees Santa pairing up with the children from the previous movie as well as Mrs. Claus (Russell’s real wife Goldie Hawn) and the elves, to stop a new troublemaker from canceling Christmas forever.