Rivkah Reyes – A Holiday I Do

By starrymag | December 20, 2023

By: Gladys Luna

 

 

Q) A Holiday I Do is a beautiful comedy with a lovely message about family, friends & love. How was the premise originally described to you?

A) When the team approached me with this film, they pitched it as a Hallmark style Christmas rom-com featuring a lesbian love story.

 

Q) What was your motivation to take part in A Holiday I Do?

A) We don’t often see lesbians in rom-coms. If there is a lesbian in a rom-com, she’s usually the straight leading lady’s best friend who provides two-dimensional comic relief and ultimately doesn’t have much of an emotional arc. Being able to play the love interest in a rom-com has always been a dream of mine, but I usually audition for the funny lesbian sidekick character. I was immediately drawn to A Holiday I Do because it not only celebrates and follows the classic holiday rom-com story structure, but also bends the genre and makes it more inclusive.

 

Q) What is it about your character that has resonated with you the most?

A) Sue’s work ethic constantly getting in the way of her love life was very relatable.

 

Q) At first glance, Sue appears to be a determined and confident person that begins to show her insecurities and fears as the story unravels, what challenges did you find while building this character and what was the biggest lesson learned from this process?

A) I highly identified with the conflict in Sue’s mind throughout her character arc. Many of us work-driven people have had that struggle of not giving too much of ourselves away while simultaneously falling hard for someone, so it was easy to tap into that. I also had some time with Paul [Schneider], Alicia [Schneider] and [Melinda Bryce] to chat about giving Sue a rich and deep backstory that didn’t feel cookie-cutter.

 

Q) Were you familiar with any of your co-stars before working with them on the film?

A) Funnily enough, when I found out Lindsay Hicks was going to be playing Jane, I thought she looked familiar, only to realize we were both part of a queer members’ club in LA called Serif and had a bunch of mutual friends. And even though we didn’t have any scenes together, I have been a fan of Marsha Warfield for a long time. She’s iconic!

 

Q) The chemistry between you and Lindsay Hicks surpasses the screen and it was very amusing to witness. What was your experience like partnering along with her on this adventure?

A) I absolutely loved working with Lindsay! We bonded during production, worked out together, went on little Target runs together in freezing weather and even went to coaching sessions for some of our scenes in the film with the amazing Lesly Kahn via Zoom. Lindsay and I have a very similar sense of humor, so we got along great and spent a lot of time between takes cracking jokes with each other. Plus, she brought her dog Bagel to set…and anytime I’m around a fluffy dog, my heart explodes.

 

Q) What were some of your favorite scenes to shoot?

A) The yoga scene was my favorite because I got to show off my skills. I’ve been a yoga girlie for years, but I hadn’t had the experience of doing yoga on camera! And of course, the initial meet-cute between Jane (Lindsay Hicks) and Sue was really fun and exciting. Originally, that scene was a tense, embarrassing moment for Jane where Sue was really upset about the spilled coffee, but we ended up making it a true awkward lesbian meet-cute, complete with a dorky joke and an almond milk latte easter egg. (If you know, you know.)

 

Q) Since the movie has a big group of characters with their own storylines, for a moment, it feels that Sue and Jane’s on-screen time is not enough. Do you think there’s something about their storyline that was left out or you would have liked to have explored more in depth?

A) I think we had a great amount of screen time! The one thing I would have liked the story to expand on is that neither Jane nor Sue explicitly talk about their queerness with each other. It’s hinted at here and there, but in my experience dating in the real world, it’s ALL we talk about.

 

Q) It’s been a while since the last time we had a Christmas movie with a LGBTQ+ characters or storylines leads on the screen; how do you feel about this lack of representation, and do you consider necessary to do in order to bring these stories to the upfront more often?

A) I think it’s becoming more and more common to see queer love in film and TV, but they’re pretty rarely a realistic portrayal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that films like Happiest Season and A Holiday I Do are being made, and I feel like they’re a good start, but we also need more well-rounded queer love stories that don’t play into stereotypes or feel like we’re spoon feeding “palatable queerness” to straight people in Middle America. This means more queer filmmakers need to be given the opportunity to write their projects. More funding needs to go into nurturing and developing these filmmakers. Hollywood has the money; they just don’t always put it in the right places. Maybe instead of spending millions of dollars on AI robots to reanimate dead actors and generate more palatable content, these billionaire execs can just pay living breathing humans to write good stories? Phew, let me get off my soapbox and take a long sip of my Diet Coke. Okay. We’re good.

 

Q) In the movie, we see these intricate characters dealing with their own inner dilemmas and obstacles but that, in the end, they are always willing to bring a sense of community and support for each other. What did you personally take away from your time working on A Holiday I Do?

A) Film is the world’s greatest group project. It really takes a village to get a perfect shot of an elf on a shelf, as silly as that sounds. It takes a lot of minds and bodies coming together to come up with creative ways to bring the story to life and solve problems along the way. We had a couple of road bumps during production and the team really had to figure out how we were going to shoot everything to get the film done in time, but everyone maintained a good attitude. It’s important in those challenging moments to tether yourself to the “why?” Why are we making this film? Why is this an exciting project? Why does the world need this film right now?

 

Q) Besides acting, you are also an experienced musician, producer and writer. What is the facet you have enjoyed the most in your career and what are some of the best lessons you have learned in the process of developing each role?

A) It’s all connected at this point, but I have been a musician since before I could fully form sentences. Music is my safe space. I will always consider music to be my first love, so anything I write will have musicality to it. In my many roles, I’ve really learned that the key to all of it is approaching any art form from a mindset of service. Serving the audience. Serving the character. Serving the crew. Serving the story that’s being told. And usually, serving a fierce look.

 

Q) What are the next projects you are working on and what can you share with us about them?

A) I’m currently in pre-production for two horror shorts written by queer filmmakers. One involves clowns, and the other involves music fandom culture. I’m really excited to be executive producing and starring in both of them.

 

Q) What would you like to say to your fans and supporters out there?

A) Don’t make content. Make art.