The holiday season isn't complete each year without a strong slate of projects in the Christmas movie schedule, and Hallmark managed to film 40 for 2023. Luckily, one of those starred with Luke Macfarlane, who has been a staple of the network for fifteen movies over nearly a decade. As star of Catch Me If You Claus opposite Italia Ricci, the actor also achieved a first: getting to play the character of Santa Claus. Speaking with CinemaBlend, Macfarlane opened up about that "privilege" this year!
The actor played a wide variety of characters in Hallmark movies over the years, and has specifically shouted out playing a firefighter. In Catch Me If You Claus, he portrayed Chris, the son of the previous Santa Claus who just wanted to handle the holiday duties himself and stand on his own two boots as the new Santa Claus. Italia Ricci played Avery, who originally believed that the man who arose such a clatter in her house was a crook.
When I spoke with Macfarlane for the project, he shared what it was like to finally get to play Santa after fifteen Hallmark movies, nine of which were Christmas-themed. He shared:
I can joke about [how] finally being allowed to play Santa Claus feels like a privilege in the network that brings us the most Christmas content. I feel like it's sort of like a knighting, if you will, to be able to play a maybe/maybe not Santa character. [laughs] In a way, he's definitely the most fictional of the characters I've played. He's got a full time job. I feel like I'm being very vague about whether or not he is or isn't Santa Claus. Of course he is! [For Avery], is he a person that is a little delusional or is he actually Santa? So that is pretty fun in this movie.
Catch Me If You Claus is Luke Macfarlane's fifteenth Hallmark project, so it's saying something that the actor described his character as "definitely the most fictional" of his roles. His very first TV movie for the network was The Memory Book in 2014, followed by his first Christmas movie in 2015 opposite Nikki DeLoach, who opened up this season about A World Record Christmas being inspired by a true story.
For Macfarlane, The Memory Book in 2014 was followed by Christmas Land (2015), The Mistletoe Promise (2016), Karen Kingsbury's Maggie Christmas Miracle (2017), Birthday Wish (2017), A Shoe Addict's Christmas (2018), Just Add Romance (2019), Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen (2019), A Valentine's Match (2020), Taking a Shot at Love (2021), Christmas In My Heart (2021), Moriah's Lighthouse (2022), A Magical Christmas Village (2022), Notes of Autumn (2023), and of course Catch Me If You Claus on Thanksgiving Day in 2023.
So, it is extremely safe to say that he earned the right to finally play Santa Claus! When I asked if it was fun to play a more fantastical role than usual, he responded:
Completely, completely more fun! And also really fun to sort of try to discover, like, what is the North Pole? What are the rules there at the North Pole? It was fun. I think our writer did an amazing job kind of being creative about how the whole Santa Claus system works and what the lineage is. If you liked The Crown, you might like this movie. [laughs] The complex legacy of the different families that wear the crown for different seasons. That was really, really fun.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Hallmark Christmas movie if the main characters didn't learn a valuable lesson by the time the final credits rolled, and both Chris and Avery had to step up to save her job (and Christmas) despite the commentary from their respective parents. Macfarlane continued:
I think, more deeply, the movie is essentially about wanting to please your parents and how to do that and about how you have expectations that are placed upon you by your family and how you want to live up to them. I thought that was a really clever thing that this movie addressed and ultimately, you're going to have to do it your own way... My character, despite the rich tradition of Clausing, ultimately finds his own way to do it.
While Catch Me If You Claus does have a serious lesson for Chris and Avery to learn, it's easy to see in the movie how Luke Macfarlane was inspired by Will Ferrell in Elf. There were also plenty of sparks flying between the main characters to go with the laughs, to the point that Italia Ricci and Macfarlane speculated that their kiss was the longest in Hallmark history.
There's still plenty of merry-and-brightness in the holiday season, so be sure to keep tuning in to Hallmark ahead of the 2024 TV season for all the cable TV Christmas cheer you could hope for!
