The Naughty Comedy Of Christmas With The Campbells Often Went Too Far On Set [Exclusive]

On the surface, the newly released "Christmas with the Campbells" may look like your average holiday romantic comedy, the likes of which you'd see on the Hallmark channel. But that's exactly what producers Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley wanted you to think. Though the film retains the cheesy romance and holiday heart of those made-for-TV movies, it's also packed with hilariously raunchy one-liners and the kind of dialogue that you'll be absolutely shocked to hear in a holiday movie like this. 

If you're not familiar with the premise of the movie, "Christmas with the Campbells" follows Jesse (Brittany Snow), whose life is thrown into upheaval when her douchebag boyfriend Shawn (Alex Moffat) breaks up with her just a few days before Christmas. However, since Shawn will be in New York City for the holidays, and his parents, the titular Campbells played by Julia Duffy and George Wendt, love Jesse so much, they invite her over to spend Christmas with them. While Jesse is spending time in with the Campbells in Idaho, she meets their charming, down-to-earth, outdoorsy nephew David (Justin Long), and romantic sparks fly. But all that could come tumbling down with Shawn actually shows up for Christmas, horny as ever, and he thinks up a plan to get back together with Jesse.

Balancing the R-rated comedy and saccharine sweetness in the movie is legitimate Hallmark director Clare Niederpruem, who had a blast on set with Brittany Snow, Justin Long, and Alex Moffat frequently improvising lines on set. In fact, in an interview with the filmmaker, we learned that the comedy's cast would often take things a little too far with their raunchiness, especially with Vince Vaughn also sitting on set offering a variety of alternate lines for the cast to spout off.

In speaking with Clare Niederpruem leading up to the release of "Christmas with the Campbells" (now playing in select theaters, streaming on AMC+, and available for digital rental), the filmmaker confirmed there were plenty of times when the cast pushed the envelope just a little too much:

"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."

Though Vaughn and Billingsley certainly wanted to shake up this holiday romance formula, they didn't want to break it. Niederpruem explained:

"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."

Thankfully, they had plenty of options to work with in post-production, and that's where they really figured out how to keep the comedy from sending the movie off the rails. Niederpruem continued:

"A lot of [the balance] 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."

If you're wondering what some of the jokes might have been like that went too far, Niederpruem provided a perfect example.

Of course, I couldn't help but ask Niederpruem if she remembered any of the funnier bits that didn't make the cut, and she did not disappoint. She explained, "A lot of them come from Alex Moffat's mouth," and one line in particular sent the cast and crew into stitches:

"There was this one joke, he said something like, 'I want to get your face pregnant.' 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.'"

Alex Moffat, a veteran of "Saturday Night Live," is the ultimate douchebag in "Christmas with the Campbells," and I can only imagine what other lines he cooked up to keep this guy at the top of the d***head totem pole. Hopefully there will be some kind of gag reel released in the future so we can hear even more of the jokes that didn't make it into the movie.

"Christmas with the Campbells" is playing in select theaters, streaming on AMC+, and available for rental on various digital platforms.