Alexandra Breckenridge had a great time playing jolly old Saint Nick in her new film, My Secret Santa — but the heavy prosthetics and fake belly needed for the transformation were admittedly “miserable.”
“I’m gonna be totally honest, it’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world,” Breckenridge, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing the film. “It’s so uncomfortable because it’s suffocating your skin for 12 hours, and then I had a beard as well, obviously, so that was glued to my face, and then the mustache, so it was really hard to eat. My skin was just really angry.”
Breckenridge takes on dual roles in My Secret Santa, playing Taylor, a down on her luck single mom who asks her family to help her pretend to be an old man so she can get a job as Santa Claus at a ski resort. Breckenridge ends up spending most of the film as her secret identity, a job that required her to wear facial prosthetics, a fake belly, wig, beard and the iconic red velvet suit, all of which weighed about 15 pounds.
“When I was outside shooting in negative nine degree weather, it was great,” Breckenridge said with a laugh. “But when I was inside, doing Santa’s Village with the kids, I was so hot. I had to put ice packs in the front and in the back of my suit. And my wonderful team who did my prosthetics, they would come in with these fans and try to fan me. I have some hysterical photos from set!”
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Breckenridge noted that despite how “miserable” she felt “physically,” taking on the two-part gig was the best acting experience she’s had in years. “I got to play a character within a character,” she gushed. “I was able to just be silly and be ridiculous. And it was so much fun.”
That fun, however, only manifested after she pushed past being “terrified” of a script that required such heavy lifting.
“I was like, ‘This could turn out to be absolutely awful if I can’t make the audience, or help the audience, follow this character in the story line and have that suspension of disbelief. It’s not going to work,’” she recalled. “But I think part of the wonderful thing about life is to challenge yourself often. And this was definitely a challenge.”
As for taking on the task of portraying the one and only Kriss Kringle, Breckenridge said she looked to Tim Allen’s portrayal in The Santa Clause — but putting on the magic suit is what really did the trick.
“What helped the most was getting everything on,” she told Us. “I had some inkling of what I was going to do, but [then] I really got into the full hair, makeup and suit and I found a walk.”
There was also the added angle that Breckenridge isn’t actually playing Santa – she’s a woman pretending to be him, which means the portrayal isn’t always going to be spot on.
“My character, Taylor, she’s not an actress, so there has to be some level of naiveness to the role, because she doesn’t, like, jump into playing Santa Claus and just know exactly what she’s doing,” she quipped. “I think that’s also what makes it kind of funny.”
If playing dual roles, rocking heavy prosthetics and pretending to be every kid’s favorite magical figure wasn’t intimidating enough, Breckenridge had the added challenge of getting up on stage — in freezing cold temperatures — to sing and jam out on guitar for one of the film’s final big moments. Luckily for the Virgin River star, her voice was not required, only some top-tier level lip-syncing.
“It’s not my voice. I almost sang it, but then that scared me more than playing Santa Claus!” Breckenridge confessed, adding that the guitar solo was slightly easier since she “grew up” playing and her husband, Casey Hooper, is also a guitarist.
Still, shredding wasn’t exactly easy.
“That song is actually shockingly hard to play because of the reach, and I have very tiny pinkies,” she added. “I practiced it many, many, many, many times, but you know what? Once I got out in that freezing cold weather, I could barely move my fingers anyway, so all the work that I had done leading up to that moment, I was like, ‘Well, I’ll just keep them in the same position!’”
One thing that was easy? Building chemistry with her on screen love interest, Ryan Eggold, who’s character finds himself very confused when he starts to build a special kind of connection with Taylor — and Santa.
“With chemistry, a lot of it can be accidental, but I find that if you have a similar sense of humor, you can slide into a rapport with somebody very easily, and that helps,” the This Is Us alum explained, noting that she and Eggold, 41, have been friends for decades. “And if you know your partner is willing to make jokes with you and just have fun. It’s like playing tennis or something, you have to hit the ball back and forth, and so if you can get into that rhythm with someone, it shows on camera.”
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Breckenridge and Eggold’s sparks certainly translate on screen, and the pair — along with Tia Mowry and the rest of the cast — deliver one of Netflix’s most delightful and hilarious movies of the holiday season. While Breckenridge hopes that “everyone” falls in love with the film, she’s mostly excited for people to see her stretch her acting legs in a different way.
“I love working on Virgin River, but I was really looking for something that I could sink my teeth into as an actress,” she told Us. “And this was definitely that kind of role.”
My Secret Santa is now streaming on Netflix.
