The Christmas film season has arrived, and with it comes a new take on Santa Claus in the action-adventure holiday movie ‘Red One’ starring Dwayne Jonson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu & J.K. Simmons. Action and adventure aren’t usually synonymous with Christmas films, but with Dwayne Johnson leading a crack team of military-trained polar bears, action is exactly what to expect.

The cast of ‘Red One’ are currently on a global tour to spread the word about the film which is now showing in Irish cinemas, we were lucky enough to attend the global press conference this week where they talked about making a Christmas film for the next generation.

In this contemporary take on the holiday season, Santa Claus, who goes by the code name Red One, is played by JK Simmons, a Santa with a six-pack and bulging biceps. When a nefarious organisation kidnaps Red One, Johnson’s Callum has to track down Jack, a conman and hacker who sold information that led the baddies to Santa’s location.

Chris Evans plays Jack and at the press conference, discussed how his character, who is on Santa’s naughty list, proves that anyone can work for redemption when Callum asks him to help find the man in the big red suit. “I think at the heart of any good Christmas story [redemption] is going to be ribbon running through the plot. This movie does a great job of tapping into the heart and humanity that you’re supposed to feel during the holidays. It is about remembering priorities, and certainly for the folks that are looking for forgiveness, offering them it.”

The film uses practical effects to create several mythical characters, including Krampus, played by the Game of Thrones actor Kristofer Hivju. Johnson spoke at length about how much he enjoyed Hivju’s larger-than-life character.

“Chris and I had the privilege of obviously being on set for many, many days with Kristofer as Krampus. It is one of the most impressive things we have ever seen. He’s just massive and does such a spectacular job as Krampus, but also the prosthetics that he was wearing. The challenge is there has to be so much life going on in his eyes because everything else is just these incredible prosthetics because he’s such a superior actor you felt that you feel that in the movie.”

Evans agreed that practical effects bring much more depth to a film.

“I grew up watching movies like Labyrinth and Never Ending Story. It was all practical; it was real. Those things stuck with you as a kid because they were things you had never seen in your normal life. Now that every other movie is CG, when you do get a film that is practical, it sticks with you in that same way because it’s rare.’

The film’s director, Jake Kasdan, says this was his first time working with such complex effects but says it was something he was determined to do.

“We never even considered doing it CG. We always wanted to do [practical effects]. I had never had anything in a movie with complex character makeup like that. We found one of the world’s truly great guys to design it with us, and it was so gratifying in the big sequence in the movie at Krampus’s lair,”

Hivju says he played against his prosthetics to make the character work.

“The character is more or less the suit, right? So I tried to play against the suit, play him as narcissistic and self-indulgent as possible, and certainly, that mixture became a bit disturbing. Krampus has the same objective as Nick; they want the same. It’s a thing; it’s just the method punishing or rewarding, and sometimes you need a bit of slapping.”

Evans says combining Christmas and action is not as big of a leap as the audience might expect.

“There’s such great Christmas folklore, not just the stories we all grew up with, but internationally. When you hear some of these stories and mythology, it almost begs for some sort of action-adventure movie,”

Johnson says one of his favourite parts of the film is the heart at the centre of it.

“There is so much heart in this movie. One of my favourite parts of the movie is where JK as Santa Claus reminds me that it’s our job to see the best in people and look beyond if they’re on the naughty list. Look beyond it and see the kid in everybody.”

Lucy Liu is the head of a secret government agency that oversees and protects mythological beings’ existence. She said her character was initially supposed to stay away from action, but she was excited when that changed and got to go full kickass.

“I had spoken to Jake and asked if I needed to prep anything. He said, no, maybe she’s gonna throw a kick and maybe a punch. That’s it. You’re just the boss lady, and then that’s all it’s gonna be. I show up to the set, we are doing the costume fittings, and then the stunt coordinator comes in, and he says, I just want to give you a little bit of a previz of what we’re gonna do. He shows me this entire action scene. I kicked in; it was like I was alive again. I hadn’t done it in a long time, but it just came back to me.”

Liu also talked about her love of action films. “I love watching action movies. I grew up watching them, and being on the screen, doing action is so exciting, and I think it gets kids excited, girls excited, and women excited.”

Words – Cara O’Doherty

Red One is in cinemas now