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DigiGods Episode 248: How Christmas Rom-Coms took over the world - Part 2
51 Plays1 year ago
CineGod Ray Greene speaks with Actress-Producer CHRISTINA MOORE on Giving Netflix Reason to "BELIEVE"
DigiGods Podcast, 12/23/22 (M4a) — 5.7 MB
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Transcript
Introduction to Christina Moore's Career
00:00:06
Speaker
ESX Entertainment's energetic Christina Moore is an actress, a producer, a screenwriter, and a human dynamo. Moore's a showbiz veteran, and she's constantly working. In addition to producing films at ESX, she acts regularly in a range of projects.
Moore's Notable Roles in Comedy
00:00:22
Speaker
But you might remember her best from her season doing sketch comedy on MAD TV, or as the second Lori Foreman on that 70s show.
00:00:30
Speaker
ESX president Ali Afshar used to take acting classes with Christina when they were both young strivers. And she's been part of the production mix at ESX both behind and in front of the camera from the start. Ali Afshar. So Christina and I met years ago when we were in our 20s in acting class. So we were coming up the acting ladder. I remember when she booked her first role and I booked my first role. So we became friends then and then her acting went into the stratosphere. She got serious regular roles on, you know,
00:00:59
Speaker
TV and Hyperion Bay and Good Girls Guide and got so many shows, you know, the 70s show. So she became really successful. And at that same time, Christine helped me with marketing and promoting.
00:01:13
Speaker
And even we've kind of started this business and she was active from day one with that.
Producing Christmas Comedies
00:01:20
Speaker
This year, Christina is one of the producers on two of ESX top Christmas comedies. A Hollywood Christmas is a rom-com about people who make Christmas rom-coms.
00:01:30
Speaker
and it's been dominating the most viewed charts at HBO Max this Christmas season. Written by Christina's husband, John Doocy, I Believe in Santa is another unique Christmas comedy in which Doocy and Moore also star as the grown man who still believes in Santa and the unbelieving woman who has to decide if she can live with that. We caught up with the delightful Christina Moore at ESX's Burbank offices on the day before the red carpet for Ibis.
00:01:57
Speaker
as I believe in Santa is sometimes called. Our conversation encompasses the nuts and bolts of producing, the magic of Christmas, and the magic of working at a company like ESX. Christina, tell me who you are. Oh, I'm Christina Moore. I'm from Palatine, Illinois. I grew up in musical theater. I went to college for musical theater.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I was a decent, I was a pretty good dancer. I was an ish singer. I could act and then I broke my ankle during a summer stock show, the young Abraham Lincoln boyhood musical drama. And so I thought, oh, like, no, that dancing thing is too hard. So I moved to LA.
00:02:46
Speaker
But I think there is a musical theater kid that lives in me. I think that all the people who ever put a play on in a barn and, you know, painted the sets and sewed the costumes and sang and danced and did, like there's a can-do attitude. And I think that's... Is that my slogan, can-do attitude? Maybe.
00:03:10
Speaker
What's special about this exact moment right now? What is special in this moment is all of the anticipation. It's all of the unknown. Because this time, two days from now, the world will have, I believe in Santa, our project.
00:03:29
Speaker
Then it's out there. So, like, this is the last moment when it's my secret. And it was written by my husband, John, and developed by our director, Alex, off of a poker bet. They've worked together a lot. Alex thought, oh, I want you to write at me a Christmas movie that, like, captures that sense of, like, goodwill towards all and that people rise up and are the best versions of themselves at Christmas, but I also kind of like the 40-year-old version, and so,
00:03:58
Speaker
John wrote it about a guy who still believes in Santa Claus, but like for real. And it's deeply, deeply personal because it's a lot based on our marriage. We met the way that you do and I got to his house and his living room looked like a first grade classroom with football shit everywhere.
00:04:20
Speaker
Can I say shit? Or should I say football? Football stuff everywhere. Like, taped the walls, like, hanging little doilies from the ceiling. The living room had six televisions he paid to have, like, it's like he turned his house into a sports bar. And I was like, oh. He is a giant overgrown kid. Like, he has, he's much more tapped into magic on the daily.
00:04:45
Speaker
That's just how his brain
Personal Insights on Marriage and Film
00:04:47
Speaker
works. So how do you navigate loving someone who has almost like a spiritual belief in something that you don't? So football was his childish obsession. Yes. And that became Santa in the movie. In the movie, yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
a mature, grown-up person, functional in the world, who's never stopped believing incentive. Yeah, just never.
00:05:16
Speaker
Well, you think about it, to anybody who has kids, and there's a five year old who's like, is that Santa on the roof? And that cranky uncle is gonna say, there's no such thing as Santa. He would be shuttled out the back door. It's like we all agree that even if you don't believe in Santa, you will present. What's it like to fall in love with your husband
00:05:44
Speaker
Oh, that was it. That was the one thing that I was the most concerned about and really just had to put all of my trust in our director, Alex, because
00:05:55
Speaker
It's like I can remember what it felt like, but that's now like 17 years ago. And the truth is you can't really recreate. Like I'm, as an actor, I'm not, I can go like, yeah, it feels like that thing that I used to do, but it has to feel real right now. So what is it that you can be mystified and twinkled by and remarking on and falling in love? You can do it. You can fall in love any minute of the day.
00:06:23
Speaker
And what separates it from old married behavior is a lack of knowing. It's a pure, unadulterated curiosity about somebody. And once you've known them, there's an assumption of, well, that's just how you behave.
00:06:40
Speaker
trying to keep in that like percolating, magical moment. I'm the more, I'm the pragmatic
Comparisons of Producing and Wedding Planning
00:06:47
Speaker
one. I mean, my husband John, he's the writer, I'm the producer. It's like super obvious. Like I'm the like, how do we get shit done? And he's the like, what else could we do? Like dreaming over here. So he's kind of ready for that. I've said a lot of times that being a producer is like being the wedding planner and being the actor is like being the bride.
00:07:07
Speaker
And so now you're a producer or actor. It's like you're the wedding planner and the bride at the same time. But what the gift that a bride gets is that everyone who's there, everybody who's there is doing nothing but like pouring love on you.
00:07:24
Speaker
And that's all of the energy, and that's no different than when you're on a set. I mean, our sets, I like to believe. There's a definite culture of kindness and just love. Really, that's what it is. The lights are all up, and there's a Christmas tree that's three stories high.
00:07:45
Speaker
Everywhere you look is some animatronic old-fashioned, like because that's what production design did. Everything is there to help create the moment. What do you think is special about ESX itself?
Culture and Nurturing Talent at ESX
00:07:59
Speaker
I mean, it all comes from the top, right? I mean, Ali is a relationship over results kind of guy. He's still best friends with everybody he ever knew in first grade. He's that kind of guy. I've known him since 1995. He's very loyal and creates these relationships. I also think he has an astonishingly good picker. He will put people together.
00:08:29
Speaker
And so like me and Alex, I mentioned, like we've done now, and I think it's 10 films. I don't even know, like, and I, Ally will be like, hey, so I have this new thing. And I'm like, oh, is Alex directing? Like you don't even have to ask, of course. I'll go, I'll do anything, Alex. Like there's a camaraderie, there's a deep, deep, deep bond.
00:08:48
Speaker
And I think that once we know that, then that comes from the top. And I know for me, I make a really big concerted effort as a producer. I didn't do it initially and I didn't like it. I wasn't very good at it. But I go around and my job is to say, do you have everything you need? Is there, what can I help you with? And you're doing a great job.
00:09:13
Speaker
Because that's, I'm coming from the top. So I feel like when you get on really cranky set, it's because some, the top came in, you know, what is it? Like the husband, like kicked the dog, the wife, then like, you know, hurt the cat, the cat hit the mouth. Like it just comes rolling downhill. And instead, if it is, you're doing a great job, what do you need help with? And then,
00:09:35
Speaker
Helping well as a producer that's a hundred percent my job one of the things I'm the most proud of because we've been doing this now for like seven or eight years is the first crop That was young like I signed all the letters to get them into the Union I wrote the thing that said like, you know, and so now there's an entire crop of
00:09:57
Speaker
kids that just aren't kids anymore and I just follow to see what cool, sexy, crazy, awesome stuff they're doing. I did a photo shoot recently after not having done a photo shoot for 10 years and I was like, okay, my Christmas wish, Santa Claus, I got the hair and makeup people that
00:10:17
Speaker
These are the two Christian cell that like I wrote to the unions and I just was like is there any Possibility that you guys aren't working this one day and to have them back like I mean I can do it again I was like I have can't wait till this photo shoot is over because I have like a really big ugly cry from this crap this group this like little nest Having been able to like magically come back for this one moment
00:10:44
Speaker
So I think it is a family, maybe it's just like a really emotionally healthy developed family. We grow you up and kick you out because you got to go be awesome by yourself.