Christmas With The Campbells Director Talks Balancing Raunchiness And Sweetness [Exclusive Interview]

"Christmas with the Campbells" is coming to select theaters and AMC+ this weekend. If this is the first you're hearing of the movie, I cannot implore you enough to seek out this R-rated spin on the Hallmark holiday romantic comedy formula. Featuring a solid cast that includes Brittany Snow, Justin Long, and Alex Moffat, this production from Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley provides a raunchy, refreshing makeover of what has become a holiday staple for many people. Trust me when I say you'll experience some side-splitting laughter if you give this one a shot.

After becoming enamored with this jarring juxtaposition of nice holiday heart and naughty comedy, I spoke with director Clare Niederpruem, who has legit experience behind the camera of several Hallmark movies. Vaughn and Billingsley wanted someone who was familiar with that brand but was interested in injecting it with a little bit of salaciousness. Find out how she balanced the sweetness with the provocative laughs, hear about what scenes were added at the last minute after audiences wanted to see more of a couple characters, and find out what Alex Moffat said in an outtake that helped them figure out where the line was for how dirty they were willing to make the jokes. 

I was totally blown away by how funny this movie was. I watched the trailer and I thought, "Oh, okay, I wasn't expecting that." But seeing a full-on Hallmark movie turned into an R-rated romantic comedy was so much fun.

Oh, I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

Actually, after I watched it the first time, I told my mom about it. I said, "You have to watch this." Because she watches real Hallmark movies, and she was laughing so hard, and her jaw dropped several times. She's was just in disbelief and totally loved it and has been telling all her friends about it.

Oh, that's good. That's what we're going for.

To start with, I wanted to ask, what was your relationship like with Hallmark movies before you started directing them? Do you have a genuine appreciation for them, or is it more of an ironic love?

Oh, I had a genuine love for them. I love all things holiday and Christmas and romcoms in general. So I was a huge fan of Hallmark before I started working for them, and then I became even more of a big fan, because they're such a wonderful company to work for. You don't meet anyone who doesn't love something about a Hallmark movie. I love that you can watch it with your grandparents and your kids and it's just ... what's not to love? It's just everything good about life. If only we could all be as nice as everyone at Hallmark, really.

So how did "Christmas with the Campbells" come around to you? How did Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley pitch it to you — what was that process like?

They were looking for a director who knew the Hallmark brand. At this point in my career, I had done about seven or eight Hallmark films, so I would say I knew it pretty well. I met with Vince and Peter and the other writer, Dan Lagana, and they just told me what they were going for and then sent me the script. Like your mother, I had the same reaction, because I was reading the first couple pages, and it felt pretty much like, "Oh, they're setting up in the same way that a Hallmark does." Then all of a sudden, you get these dirty jokes, or you get a kid cursing, and it made me laugh out loud, because they really were true to the genre and then just allowed the dialogue to be kind of shocking. So, I was really drawn to the script, and then met with the guys, and they were really looking for a director who knew the brand but could also be very collaborative. It happened all really quick. I think I interviewed with them last December, and we were filming a few days after Christmas.

Oh, wow!

But it was such a good experience. They're all such a wonderful team to work for. I feel super lucky.

Most of the lead actors you have here haven't done a Hallmark movie before. So were there any specific Hallmark holiday movies that maybe you had them watch to get an idea of what you're going for? Because Justin Long in particular, he's hilarious and it feels like he's really tapping into many of the love interests you see in those kinds of movies.

Yeah, exactly. We referenced Hallmark a lot, and we would talk about how everyone leads with being kind in a Hallmark movie. So we wanted to give each character that sort of feel. But nowadays, Netflix does their version of these Christmas movies, and really everyone does. Hallmark was definitely the first to do it in the way that they do it, so we would talk a lot about Hallmark films, but then just also kind of this sweet Christmas genre. Christmas movies now are almost as big as sci-fi. It's like it's own thing. We really wanted the look of the film to feel typical, almost cliche-Christmas-movie-like. So when the jokes come out, the juxtaposition of the sweet-looking set with the raunchy language.

That's one of the things I love so much. I think it makes it so much more jarring that everything else feels so clean cut, but then you have just these dirty jokes in the middle of it.

Exactly, exactly.

Was it hard to balance that, making sure you kept your foot in that sweeter side of the Hallmark style while adding the raunchy laughs? How did you determine whether or not the comedy ever went a little too far?

We had a lot of takes where it did go too far. This movie, we found it as we were filming. That's where Vince's comedic genius comes into play, and he was there on set giving the actors a lot of different lines.

Oh, cool!

All of these actors are wonderful improvisers too, especially Alex Moffat. But Justin Long too, and Brittany as well. They could just do all these takes with different jokes. A lot of times we went too far, but then we would find our sweet spot. We were also really careful about making sure that the love story was working, because we wanted people to feel like, "Oh, we want these people to end up together just like you do in a Hallmark movie." You still want to see them kiss at the end. So we wanted to be true to that and then play with the jokes.

A lot of that was found in the edit room, because we played so much on set, and then we got into the edit room and kind of figured out what was too far. But we found a happy medium, I think. A lot of it is just making sure we were true to the characters and making sure the jokes didn't feel like it was just for jokes. It was true to who these people were playing and their relationships with each other.

Can you recall any of the jokes that maybe didn't make the cut but that absolutely cracked everybody up?

Oh gosh, there were a few. A lot of them come from Alex Moffat's mouth. Moffat, I love you, but, oh my gosh. There was this one joke, he said something like, "I want to get your face pregnant." 

[both laugh]

It was so funny at the time that he said it. It was so random, and we were dying laughing. But then I remember Peter Billingsley in the edit was like, "That one was one too far. It was just one too far."

That's so good.

That's the first one that popped in my head. Sorry, everyone. "Get your face pregnant." I don't know what it means. [laughs] But there you go.

I love that.

Now, I read in an interview with Vince and Peter that a couple weeks before the movie was supposed to be finished that Vince had to write five additional scenes that you guys had to shoot really quickly. What were those scenes, and why did you determine they were necessary?

Those scenes are mostly with the parents in the bedroom. So what happened is, Julia Duffy and George Wendt, who are so wonderful, when they were doing test screenings of the film, people really responded to their relationship and how they would give these sex jokes to each other. But then we never went to the bedroom to see them together alone. So Vince had the genius idea of, "Well, why don't we just film it?" Definitely one thing I've learned from working with those guys is you can always improve.

They were taking the information, like, "Oh, this is really working," this idea that this older couple has this very vibrant, crazy sex life. So they wanted to do more of that, and that was mostly what we added. What was the last thing? I think adding JoAnna [Garcia] Swisher, who plays Becky, adding more of her, because it was just really working with her and Alex Moffatt, and we just wanted to see more of it. So it was really a matter of watching the relationships start to work on set, and then adding to that and letting those actors play.

What's the shoot like? How long are you guys in production with principal photography? Because I mean, it seems like the crew is pretty economical and they get these kinds of movies done really fast.

Oh, yeah. We shot this in Utah, on location, in January, and we only had a 17-day shoot, so it was really quick. Too quick for me. I always want more days. But it was a small crew, small budget, but very talented people. It was a little bit of gritty filmmaking, but I had a wonderful director of photography and a first [assistant director] and obviously great producers. Then we were in the edit room for a long time, I would say a couple months, figuring it out. Wild West [the company owned by Vince and Peter] does a lot of test screenings to figure out what comedy's working. That was a really fun experience for me to see how the edit was changing, but the actual shoot was pretty short. I would say post-production was longer. Our prep was very short, only two weeks. Crazy.

Wow.

They had been working on the scripts for a while, but once we got down to it — Oh, we had two giant snowstorms happen while we were filming, too.

Yeah, January in Utah can be rough.

We were up in the mountains for a few days and all that snow is real.

Where exactly in Utah did you guys shoot? My girlfriend, her family lives there, so I've been there out in Provo and Park City and all that stuff.

Our house was in Kamas City, Utah, which I think is between Salt Lake and Park City. That mountain range in there. And then we were in downtown Salt Lake for the shop, the grocery store, that stuff. We did the mountain stuff in ... Gosh, I'm going to forget the name, but it's like south of Provo. It's where all the Boy Scout camps are, because it's private land, so they would let us, I mean, we had to [get] snow mobile equipment up to the Wishing Tree area.

That Wishing Tree, were you guys able to leave that prop there? Because I feel like that would be a cool thing to just let people find.

The decorations? Oh, I know, they should have. Well, it was crazy because we thought we would have to bring in a tree, but then we were scouting and we found this giant pine tree kind of in this clearing. So what they did is, it was super tall, so obviously we couldn't get all the way up to the top, but our wonderful production designer dressed half the tree and then half the tree was done in post with CGI.

There's also a pretty impressive Christmas light show towards the end of this movie. How did all that come together? Who's the mastermind behind that?

My [director of photography] was like, "We need to get one of these guys who does this professionally to light it." Because we didn't want to rely on our crew to have to do that. [...] Tom BetGeorge was our guy [...] It's called Magical Light Shows. They worked with our DP and me, as well as our composer, to get that together. They did it so quick. They were amazing. It was so fun to watch. I also think it's hysterical that George Wendt's character could pull that together. It's so epic that you're like, "He just did that himself?" I don't know if I believe that, but we actually thought that was even funnier that it's so over the top. But yeah, that's how we did that.

Would you like to do something like this again? Is there a plan? Because, personally, I would watch one of these every single year if they did it like this.

Oh, that makes me so happy. I think they're going to do another one, and I would love to do it. Vince and Peter have talked about some other synopsis. They have some really fun ideas that they've rough pitched me on the phone, and I think they might want to film one this year and have AMC release it. Because you're right, I agree with you. I think it's just really enjoyable to watch, and it's a new spin on this genre that we've seen a lot. So hopefully you'll see more.

That'd be great. Do you think you'll go back to regular, family-friendly Hallmark movies again?

I've been so lucky to work with Hallmark. I hope they hire me all the time. But I will say it is really fun to be able to get in some raunchy comedy.

Unfortunately, it feels like studios are pulling back on romantic comedies, especially R-rated ones. But after seeing this, I would love to see you tackle a full on R-rated studio romantic comedy.

Oh my gosh. I would love that. Let's put that out into the universe. Yes, yes, yes.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much. I love the movie and I'm definitely going to be pushing for people to watch this. I hope people find it.

Thank you so much. That means the world to us

"Christmas with the Campbells" will be in select theaters and streaming on AMC+ starting on December 2, 2022.