Mark Deklin – Meet Me at Christmas

By starrymag | November 14, 2020

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) How does the title of the film Meet Me at Christmas become a metaphor for the movie?

A)  It has to do with obviously there is a bit of a callback to movies like Meet Me in St. Louis, like meet me there! It’s sort of the meet-cute and all of the callbacks to those things, but it’s also because Joan (Catherine Bell) and Beau…And I am trying to say this in a way that doesn’t deal with spoilers, Joan and Beau are meeting for the first time, but it turns out they are not meeting for the first time.  They are being given a second chance.  Essentially, my character Beau is a very cool guy.  He’s a world-renowned photographer, one of those National Geographic type of guys – those guys you expect to see on the side of Mt. Everest or some place.  He has this very adventurous life, but he has been driven to this by something that happened to him when he was younger, which I don’t want to give away.  It’s driven him to live this very adventurous grab life by the horns don’t let any two days be the same single world kind of mentality. It certainly leads to a cool and interesting life, but also a bit of a lonely life.  He never really had time to settle down and find love.  He’s had a few girlfriends, one serious girlfriend, and it didn’t work out.

Beau comes to Colorado for his beloved niece’s wedding and it’s his younger brother’s daughter.  He loves them very much, but he doesn’t come home often and he feels guilty about that.  He comes in for the wedding and wouldn’t you know it, the wedding coordinator quits.  The wedding coordinator gets some fancy celebrity wedding in Aspen and decides to leave.  So, the kids are left in the lurch and Uncle Beau steps up and says, “I don’t know anything about this, but what can I do to help?  I am here.”  The other person who steps up is the groom’s mother. The groom is Liam (Luke Bilyk) and his mother Joan (who is played by Catherine).  Fortunately, Joan knows what she is doing – fortunately because Beau has no idea what he is doing.  He is so out of his depth, which makes for some nice comedy in the movie. Joan has always dreamed of being a wedding planner but she has put her dreams on hold.  She is a widow, by the way. Her husband died whom she loved very much and Liam loved his dad.  He’s been gone for a few years and Joan has been really dedicated to being a single mother.  She also has not really found time for new love.  She sort of comforts herself with, you know, “I had my one great love.”

She and Beau are planning this wedding together and Katie’s (Sage Kitchen) parents are stuck in a snow storm, so they want to come help us but they are not able to, so it’s really just the two of us.  We get to know each other and we clash, but in a fun way.  We are just very different and we sort of irritate each other, but we also amuse each other.  We sort of intrigue one another and we challenge one another because we both bring a different philosophy to life.  We each begin to see the beauty in the other’s philosophy.  What we discover along the way is we shared this common event from our younger days and, I don’t want to deal with spoilers, but Beau beings to feel like fate is at work here and he and Joan were intended to meet at Christmas.  It’s good for him because he doesn’t have much Christmas spirit and it’s good for him to get reacquainted with the holiday.

Part of the thing that drove him to live this adventurous life was something that happened to him in his younger days that spoiled Christmas for him.  So, it really becomes a story of second chances and kind of a sliding doors thing.  Two people who might have been together at once point but weren’t and missed each other and now they have a second chance to meet and get to know one another and decide if they want to go with that or not.  It’s scary for both of them.  It’s scary for Beau to settle down and commit and it’s scary for Joan to give her heart to someone because she always wants to honor the memory of her deceased husband. They are having this wedding at the place where they all met and this place is very important to Liam because he has grown up with the memory of this is where my parents met and fell in love and that’s why he wanted to get married there.  It’s all very loaded.  Beau is mindful of that and respectful of that.  It’s very cool, matured, layered and heart filled as we watch these two people navigate this and they have both been on this separate path and are they willing to take a chance and roll with this new thing that fate has thrown at them.

 

Q) I love the joy that Hallmark movies give to people when they watch, but the joy that goes into it behind the scenes as well from everyone involved with being a part of them.

A) Yeah, it’s funny.  Admittedly, there was a time in my life where I was like I am too cool for Hallmark.  I am dark and edgy.  Now, I am like “No!  Why do I always have to be dark and edgy?  What’s wrong with a film that makes people feel good?”  Especially when things are so crazy and the world feels so upside down.  I see the joy that it brings to people.  I see how happy they make people. My wife and I were just talking about it this morning.  She posted something on Facebook about Meet Me at Christmas and I guess it kind of blew up.  It’s crazy and wild how excited people are for Hallmark movies.  People are really hungry for this, especially this year.  It will be such a strange holiday for everybody.  They want some sense of normalcy and escape and new content. I was really delighted when I got the call to go do this one.  I was really happy about it.

 

Q) In Meet Me at Christmas we see you paired with Catherine Bell, and she is quite magical in her own regard.  She does a lot with Hallmark as well and she has “Good Witch,” so she really is magical!

 

A) Bless her heart!  I wrapped Thursday night and went home and she wrapped Friday then Saturday morning she was on a plane to Toronto to be in “Good Witch.”  Yeah, she is definitely giving her all for Hallmark and for her fans.

 

Q) In Meet Me at Christmas we see this really charming natural chemistry develop between your character Beau and Catherine’s character Joan. Talking about it, it seems like it was just as much off screen as well.

A)  For sure.  Off screen she is a tremendous, fantastic person and I think we work in a really similar way.  We just hit it off right away.  We had a certain comfort level with each other right off the bat.  What helped facilitate that part is the script, it’s well written with the ups and downs of the arc of their relationship is very well written.  Also, a lot of credit has to go to Jennifer Aspen, our producer.  She and Catherine are old friends.  They have been friends for years and years.  It’s really nice when I got the call, Jen reached out and she had apparently really sold Catherine on this.  Catherine wasn’t sure she wanted to do a movie right before going off to do “Good Witch.”  Jen drove her to the airport and really sold her on it, which is great.  Once she had Catherine on board, Jen told me that she had no one else in mind to be opposite of Catherine except me, which was lovely and flattering.  She was right.  It was a good match.  It was a really good match.  And Jen instinctively knew that.  She knew that we would work well off of one another.  It was a great experience all around.

I think we were the only two Americans and then everyone else filled out with these local Calgary actors who are just lovely.  I have never shot in Calgary before. It’s beautiful up there.  They treated us really well and we worked with a really lovely group of people.  Aside from the homesickness of missing my family, it was a really fantastic experience.

 

Q) Quite often the setting in a film can feel like a character in itself, and also really add to the tone of the movie.  How did that really play a part in this?

A)  I think you are absolutely right.  I think the setting can become another character and I think that manifested in a variety of ways.  Part of it was just a good feeling, to be honest. We felt very, very welcomed. They haven’t shot a lot of Hallmark movies in Calgary and it felt like they really wanted us to be there.  And they were really happy we were there.  They treated us really well, you could feel that.  That was nice. That absolutely adds to the general good feeling.

But the naturally scenery there is just stunning up there.  Obviously, it substitutes for Colorado which is where the movie takes place. That substitutes really well.  There were moments, one in particular I can think of was the wedding scene…And I don’t think I am giving anything away by saying this, I don’t know if they had the shot exactly planned.  But it’s a shot that they shot where Catherine’s character Joan has an idea. She’s like, “Wait, maybe we move the wedding outside!  It’s just this scene of the two of us walking through the woods and the camera was on a dolly and they were shooting us in between the trees where we were walking. I think when they set up the establishing shot…Obviously Ron Stannett, our cinematographer, he is a brilliant DP. So, obviously he knew that it would work.  But I don’t think anybody knew that it would work as well as it did.  Everybody was just flipping out at what a beautiful shot it was and how it was like “oh my gosh this will set the tone for the whole movie.”  They called us in to the tent to watch the playback on the video monitors.  A lot of times with scenes you get lots of coverage and you shoot it from so many different angels, that’s part of how you shoot, and with this one we basically did a few takes of that shot and a few slightly closer of basically the same shot but tighter and then we were done.  We shot that scene so quickly because the natural scenery of those trees. I believe they were Aspen trees.  They might have been Birch, but I think they were Aspen.  In any case, this little forest just made the scene and we didn’t have to do much else.  We didn’t have to create magic, it just happened.  I think we all felt really good.  That was one of those days where we were like we are in the right place we are in the pocket.  That is a great feeling.

 

Q) We talked about Jennifer Aspen, she certainly wore a lot of hats with this project and had such an incredible vision for the film which so sweetly comes through.

A) No question.  Her stamp is all over this movie.  She wore many hats.  That’s tough to do, too.  In our business, sometimes you have an idea and you don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.  So, yes, Jennifer is an accomplished actor but also an accomplished writer and director as well.  Our director Annie Bradley was phenomenal. I loved working with her and one time she had this brilliant note and we did the scene again and as soon as we were done Catherine said, “Oh my gosh, that was such a beautiful adjustment.  I don’t know what you just did there, but it was so good.”  I was like, ‘That’s all Annie. She whispered this great note in my ear.”  And Annie said, “Well, actually that was all Jen.  She whispered in my ear.”  So, yeah Jen wears many hats and she definitely was the visionary behind this whole thing.

I am so proud of Jen for how far she has come in this other aspect of her life.  I only knew her as a fellow actor, but we really bonded.  I don’t necessarily want to talk about her personal life in my interview, but I don’t think she would mind me saying this – that she and her husband David were in process of adopting their daughter and she had spoken to me because I am adopted.  We had long conversations about adoption and what all that entails.  I felt like in a small way I was a part of it.  So, it was just great to see Charlotte, who is a young lady, and it was just satisfying to meet her again.  I had sort of met her when she was a baby, but she didn’t really know me.  And it was another chance at a second meeting – if we can stretch that metaphor even thinner.  It was very satisfying, and I feel very connected to Jen.  She is a lovely human being.  She and David both.

 

Q) I am always in awe of Jennifer.  Any hat that Jen puts on, she is very meticulous and methodic about it and does it with such charisma.  I admire her so much.

A) Oh yeah and sharp!  She is so sharp! She has such a razor wit.  It’s funny because her demeanor is very sweet and she is a very sweet person, but she also has this very sharp wit.  When we did “GCB” I didn’t think she liked me.  Then, I realized that’s just her. She’s a smart ass. It’s funny we really ended up being really close.  She is a cool chick, no question.

 

Q) You talked about this incredible moment from filming in the forest, is there any other behind the scenes moments that really stick out for you or is something that you really are carrying with you from being a part of this project?

A) One really cool thing is I struck up this unexpected friendship with Sage Kitchen.  She plays Katie, my niece, and she and her wife live in Calgary and we just really struck up this sweet friendship.  I don’t know how to describe it.  Because she is young, I sort of felt this desire to take her under my wing and protect her on set.  Not that she needed protecting, but I just sort of had this feeling about her.  She simultaneously saw right away that I was away from home and away from my family and homesick. She felt this need, as a sort of local person, to make sure that I was taken care of while I was away. Her parents actually have a cidery. They make hard cider at this really cool place in Calgary.  They had a cast party there and I got to talk to her dad for a while there about the process of making cider. We got a backstage tour.  There were so many cool moments.

I remember there was a moment where we all had been working together for a while and in our different zones of who can be in contact with who when they are not wearing a mask.  It’s all very protected.  I realized…Wait a second, we take off our masks when the cameras are rolling, but the crew who we really have gotten to know and become close with, I have never really seen any of your faces.  I don’t know my hair and makeup people or the costume designer or the camera guys.  We sort of made everybody stand way far away, like the other side of the room, and everybody took off their masks for a minute and see all of our faces.  Where we could go, that’s the human being behind the mask who I really like and have gotten to know.  It’s so much different when you have actually gotten to see someone’s face and see their smile.

 

Q) Certainly, the holidays are going to look a lot different for a lot of us this season, what are some of your favorite holiday traditions and favorite things that you are looking forward to and maybe have to modify this year?

A)  Fortunately, a lot of our traditions are very home body and family oriented.  The nice thing is we won’t be traveling, most likely, and we won’t be doing anything super exciting.  I think like everybody, we are going to play it by ear.  Most of our beloved traditions are mostly in our house anyway.  We are at an interesting point right now because my kids are getting older. It’ll be interesting to see what traditions we love and maybe the kids were in to, like my daughter is eleven years old now. She’s not a little kid, so she might not be as into certain things as she used to be.  It might feel childish to her. That’s part of life, seeing how our relationships to certain traditions changes.  Some of them I know will be not only will be carried on – I can feel in my gut that my kids will carry on.  I love that.

We do both Hanukkah and Christmas. My wife is Jewish.  Lighting the Menorah is always a big deal. Not in a flashy sort of way, but in a very subtle, quiet, beautiful way.  We all love that.  Similarly, I have a tradition that I am pretty sure my dad started and presented it.  It is this old tradition where he would take clippings from the Christmas tree and we would all take a branch at New Years and we would make a wish for the new year.  He would talk about how Hanukkah belongs to the Jews and Christmas belongs to the Christians, but Yule belongs to the old Gods.  The Gods of forests and hills and rivers and the old Pagan Gods and we are going to make a sacrifice to them.  So, you make a wish on the branch and throw it in the fire.  If it crackles than the Gods are pleased and they have accepted your sacrifice.  I love it.  I do it with my kids and I know they are going to end up doing it with their kids.  Something like that we can still do, COVID or no COVID.

 

Q) Is there anything else about the film that you’d like to make sure to mention or say to Hallmarkies?

A) Shoutout to the Hallmarkies, for sure. The movie is this Saturday, November 14^th at 10 PM Eastern.  I am so grateful to this fanbase. The Hallmarkies are an incredibly loyal people and hardcore fanbase.  I am so grateful to have been welcomed into that fold.  Just keep watching, and thanks.  Happy holidays to everybody!