Video: Kristen and Mackenzie Davis with Marie Claire for 'Happiest Season'

 

Video: Kristen and Mackenzie Davis talk 'Happiest Season' with Glamour (UK)

 

The Happiest Season would have helped me so much growing up and regardless of your sexuality, it’s a story of self-acceptance and gaining respect from others. How would this have helped younger you?

Kristen: I would have loved to have seen this movie when I was younger. I wasn't as a teenager or as a younger person in my early twenties having to contend with judgmental energy in terms of being around a family who didn't necessarily accept you, or just being an out gay person. At the same time, I was fully like reacting to the ‘strangeness.’ I would have loved to have seen this movie, but I only know that in retrospect, and sometimes you need to be shown things before you know you need them.

I always wanted to work with Clea [DuVall]. I know for a fact that when I was watching But I'm a Cheerleader that I was like, ‘I love this movie for probably pretty solid gay reasons.’ I didn't know that until I was an adult. So, if this helps anyone who's unaware or aware of the fact that sometimes it's hard to say who you are around every group of people, then that makes me tres happy!

Mackenzie: Most importantly, this is why representation matters! I know that phrase has sort of lost a bit of meaning but it really does because it doesn't only help the people who are being represented in the thing, it also normalises a thing that up until that point maybe hasn't been normalised in mainstream entertainment. I went to a pretty progressive high school and grew up in a very liberal environment that was very accepting. But I look back at things that happened in high school and the way -more with boys and the way that gay boys were treated or whispers about gayness - and it wasn't normalised. It wasn't something that was like treated with open arms acceptance. I think if there were movies like this and if that's what we went to see on the weekends, it would not be cool. I'm not including myself in this to be clear, but there just was a culture of homophobia, even in the most liberal communities. I think not having representative stories that normalise it is the culprit for that homophobia.

Someone said to me recently that we won’t have equality until people don’t have to come out. But coming out stories are still so important and it’s imperative to have these ‘coming of age’ and ‘realisation’ stories. What do you think it’s still important to tell coming out stories in 2020?

Kristen: It's a really fringy perspective to think the fear has been sucked out of the idea of, of telling everyone, you know? It would be a really, really naively optimistic or just an ignorant dumb way to approach it. Look at where we're at just in the States. I'm so happy to be in a movie that is inviting and a part of a conversation that can be argumentative and divisive. The movie has open arms and it is not even judgmental of the people that are judgmental in the movie. To think that we're not as divided as we are is actually just not very helpful because it's not real. I'm the most optimistic, glass half-full person, but at the same time, I think this movie could be good for people that don't necessarily always lack judgement. We could be loud and aggressive with a more in-your-face indie movie and I want to make a bunch of those with other perspectives embedded in things that are sort of harder to digest, but I think it's really important to be like. ‘we're really nice too. We're just like you and like come laugh with us!’

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Video: Kristen and Mackenzie Davis with Mashable for 'Happiest Season'

 

Kristen and Mackenzie Davis' interview with Coup de Main Magazine (NZ)

COUP DE MAIN: It must be so surreal for you, but ‘Happiest Season’ is out in actual cinemas here in New Zealand. Do you have a message for New Zealanders, who can experience it in cinemas?

MACKENZIE DAVIS: Enjoy your hard-earned freedom. Your well-led freedom.

KRISTEN STEWART: You deserve it!

MACKENZIE: I'm so proud of you guys. It's so great. Celebrate, and celebrate by going to see the movie. It's so fun and lovely.

CDM: So many LGBTQ+ films follow character's stories which end in tragedy or sadness - and I think this film is so important because of the happiness and joy that it portrays, which is going to be so powerful for queer people to see on-screen. What do you want these communities and people that can relate to the characters, to take away from seeing ‘Happiest Season’?

KRISTEN: Hopefully, to go to the movies and watch a big movie and not have to go and find your story on a smaller screen, or download it, or watch it on YouTube, or somehow get to a festival and hope that maybe they find the legs to get to your town. I happen to live in LA, Mackenzie is in London right now, and we have access to smaller fringy movies, but it's really rad to find yourself visible in something so big, and it is definitely not normal. So I would be like, "Enjoy! Swim around in it. And hope for more!" I do think it's happening.

CDM: Harper’s character has a real struggle with love in her family - she says, “Love wasn’t something we got for free, it was something that we competed for.” Family relationships can be really hard, especially when siblings feel like they need to compete with one another, and have certain expectations placed upon them. Do you think that the concept of love is something that changes throughout our lives? Like how Harper has a different experience of love with Abby - a more pure form?

MACKENZIE: I think that's why her life is so compartmentalised - not because she's grown out of that one type of love into this other healthy love. She's had to restrict her identity from her hometown, with her family, with her high school, and then sort of having a totally different identity that is her true identity, I think, when she's in Pittsburgh with Abby, and with her friends as an out woman. But she never did that thing where she knit together the childhood trauma of learning a sort of perverted form of love, with the adult, grown, healthy version of love. And so she really has these two selves that are never the twain shall meet...

CDM: Tying in with that, another moment I thought was quite important was when Abby is talking with Riley about which Harper is the 'real' one, and Riley says, "Maybe they both are." Why do you think humans often have slightly different versions of themselves that they become, depending on who they are with? Whether it be around family or different groups of friends?

MACKENZIE: It's survival.

KRISTEN: Because we need to keep going. I think in order to keep going, when you observe that something's going to be more successful in a given group, you highlight that thing. And that's not to say you're changing yourself, per se, I think that there are so many potential versions of myself that live in here <motions inwards>, depending on what's going on out here <motions around her>. It can be really interesting how there are some people whom one version of themselves betrays the other, but there are also ways to be things that are unexpected, that go together, and that maybe someone's perspective is not wide enough, or too narrow to see. And so you go, 'Okay, they're not going to get this one part, so I'm just going to show this part,' and so you start to try to control that. And then it's like, when you try to control it so overtly are you losing yourself? Or are you lying? I think it's very complicated.

CDM: There are so many hilarious literal closet jokes - like when Tipper finds Abby literally hiding in a closet. Was it fun to act out those really ‘on the nose’ jokes amongst the rest of the comedic elements in the film?

KRISTEN: I didn't think about that at all. And we shot that like, 100 times. Every single time, I never put it together.

MACKENZIE: Until I saw the trailer, I never put it together.

KRISTEN: Yes, right? Me neither! Because I heard someone laugh. I was watching it with a couple of friends, and like she was like, "Abby, why are you in the closet?" Like it was the most obvious question. And they were like, "Oh, lol," and I was like, "Oh, ohhhhh!" I felt so caught in that moment that I was like, "Nothing!" I didn't think about it at all.

CDM: When Abby is in one of her darkest moments about her relationship with Harper, she says: “I don’t think that she loves me as much as I thought she did.” It’s so strange that love can be perceived as different by different people, and so many people have different ways of expressing love. What do you think are the ultimate ways to show your love for someone?

MACKENZIE: It depends on the person.

KRISTEN: Yeah.

MACKENZIE: Really, and what they need, and love languages. But what means the most to them? Maybe they don't need gifts. But maybe they really want you to build a fence.

KRISTEN: <laughs>

CDM: Love languages are so interesting. I'm always discussing them with my friends about how people just have different things they expect and need from other people.

KRISTEN: The worst is to think... I always try and rationalise things, like, 'Look, if this doesn't work, then maybe we're just not the right person for each other.' It's like, 'No! It requires effort, you have to try!' <laughs> Maybe put in the work.

CDM: Yeah, I have a friend that always tells me that love is an action and not a feeling and that always resonates with me a lot.

KRISTEN: And I also resent it. <laughs>

CDM: Clea Duvall has said: "The LGBTQ community deserves happy endings sometimes.” Considering that for the past four years, the US has dealt with a President who literally wants to take freedoms away from LGBTQ communities (from trying to attack the Affordable Care Act’s LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections, banning trans people from serving in the military, and trying to put trans prisoners according to their assigned sex at birth), why do you think that pop-culture representations of queer people and their communities are more important than ever before?

KRISTEN: Because we're constantly trying to pretend like they don't exist, and therefore take all of their rights and humanity away from them. So if they're more present and shown as normal people who actually have feelings, and that can be hurt just the same way that you can... I don't think that people typically are horrible, hateful, fill in the blank, whatever word you want to fill in there, fucking go for it, but yeah, it's because we need to be present or else we will be forgotten.

CDM: Kristen, you said about the movie: “It's a heartwarming, slightly stressful and manic Christmas movie – which are definitely my favourite ones, because that is what Christmas actually feels like.” What do you guys each have planned for this Christmas season?

MACKENZIE: I'm going home to spend time with my parents. I'm justifying the travel because I'm working in Canada right after Christmas, but it means I'm going to spend about a month at my parent's house and I'm curious about that. I'm open and curious about it.

KRISTEN: I'm open, excited and afraid. <laughs> I have a really boring non-answer for that. Nothing. I'm staying in LA. I was actually going to spend the holidays abroad, but then the world changes daily and shut down, and so the prep for my next movie changed slightly. So I'm going to be able to hang out with my family, which is nice.

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Mackenzie Davis talks ' Happiest Season' and mentions Kristen in Flaunt Magazine

 

What was the deciding factor for you to join Happiest Season? 

I didn’t know Clea [DuVall] before we met about the movie, but she was a friend of a really good friend of mine, and I just heard the most wonderful things about her, and it made me really ambitious to work with her and to force her into being my friend. So that was just a forgone conclusion before we even met. I was like ‘I’m in!’ But Kristen doing it was such a vote of confidence. I think she has such an interesting career and she’s not precious about the work that she does in that everything is going to be nominated for a César Award. 

What I really appreciated about the film is not only does it break boundaries because it creates this same-sex romance on screen, but it also does it in a genuine way. You’re not perfect, Kristen’s character is not perfect. Were you aware you were making a film that was going to change things a little bit?

I think we were aware of the headlines—that it’s the first queer-fronted studio romantic comedy Christmas movie ever made. So we knew that was the banner of the movie, but in terms of all the stuff, the imperfections, and the character failings and stuff like that, I felt sort of worried about it and insecure when we were filming it. And there’s also this feeling that I had making the movie, and that I had watching the movie, where I’m like, ‘These girls are going to have a lot of work to do on their relationship after this.’ Like it doesn’t feel like it ends now. There’s a lot of unpacking, this experience is going to go on, so I guess what I’m saying is: I think all those messy bits do make it better because it’s not a riding off into the sunset sort of story.

It’s quite difficult to find a piece about you that doesn’t mention the word ‘feminist’, and I want to know how you feel about having that label thrust upon you. Perhaps it comes from the fact that you have a degree in Gender Studies, but I wonder if that’s ever felt like a very convenient label that journalists thrust upon you?

Well, I don’t think it’s a label, because it’s something that I have no reservations about, nor have I ever had any reservations about identifying as. It feels almost passé to call yourself a ‘feminist’ now, because it’s like, if you’re not, what the fuck are you doing?! [laughs] Where do your beliefs land? So I don’t know the potency it has anymore. There was a weird time where it was extremely potent and scary for people to say and then extremely in vogue and then the in-vogue-ness has now made it feel kind of limp or something. It’s just a belief that women should be treated equally or receive equal rights to men—it’s not a really radical point of view.

But to the other part of your question, I do think the conversation surrounding feminism, strong female characters, women in Hollywood, are lazy and are sort of pigeonholing the actor answering the question even further into another category, instead of being able to have a conversation about the work that they did, the role. I find I’m constantly asked about the optics of the things: what does this mean for the future of women in Hollywood and they always want a think piece on it, which is not my job. My beliefs are evident across my resume. I’ve made very specific choices because of the things I want to see in the world and the things I believe. And to have to constantly answer about my gender in interviews even if it’s talking about—not in this case, sorry—even if it’s talking about positive advancements, just feels like I don’t get to talk about more interesting things, or things that aren’t tied to gender identity. But you know, you have to talk about things to death until they stop being interesting, so hopefully we are getting close to that. 

Happiest Season talks about something else which is quite interesting and quite deep, and that’s being truthful to yourself and being truthful about who you are to others. Have you ever gotten in trouble for being quite strongly the person you are and not doubling down from that. Or have you doubled down?

I think I tend to double down, I don’t know, I mean life’s a journey and you’re changing all the time. There are times when I was so unpleasantly staunch in my opinions and the way I communicated them to people. I then had a period of recalibration where I was like, ‘Leave room for other people to argue with you without you needing to own them,’ and like dominate a conversation, but I don’t know. I’m thinking of this time when I was in theater school, which was like the maddest I’ve been in my life. We would do scenes and sometimes there was nudity in scenes—it felt like a safe environment, part of exploring things, but I heard of a list that was in the basement of the theater school in the boys’ locker room rating all of the girls’ bodies. We were in our early twenties, not fourteen—not that it would be okay then—but there was just such a lack of respect and privacy. We were sharing our naked bodies as part of a very, very safe space to do work, and I was furious and told them to get rid of this list. 

Then we were working in the basement of the school on another day and I saw the list, like pinned up on the wall, and I have never yelled or been possessed with a demon in the way that I was when I found it. And I just remember ripping it off the wall, walking in the middle of the classroom where a class was going on, and screaming at all of these immature little boys and then storming out of school and not coming back until the next day.

I tell that story because I really relate to this—in terms of doubling down your personality—but I do feel like I get possessed with a feeling of this miscarriage of justice or something, and that can lead me to behave erratically. Also, socially I don’t think a lot of people liked me at that school because I was not fun. 

Read Mackenzie's full interview at the source.

Kristen and Mackenzie Davis' interview with Screen Rant for 'Happiest Season'

What can you tell us about Abby and Harper?

Mackenzie Davis: In the beginning, it's a pretty short period of time where we get to establish them not having been corrupted by going home to meet Harper's family. They’re a very stable, loving, transparent, settled couple that has a whole life together and is grown up. And then they go home to Harper's family, and Harper regresses into an absolute monster, and secrets tumble out.

While it is definitely a coming out story, it's also this coming-of-age story of having to unite your identity as a grown up with your identity within your family unit. How you have to regress a little bit before you can unite those two selves because your family might not be ready to accept your grown-up self.

Kristen Stewart: And as a monstrous as she does sort of reveal herself to be, Abby's perspective might not be congruent with the audience's. She knows her so well that there's never a point where you're like, "Well for conflict's sake, sure this works, she would stay." I'm constantly going, "Oh no, wait. No, no, no. You don't know her. I know her, I know her. Trust me. She's incredible in this. She's going to get through this.

While Harper may act a bit monstrous, we’ve heard that her parents are not the villains, per se. How would you describe your dynamic with them, and then Abby’s impression of them?

Mackenzie Davis: Sure, I think there's no villain. I think that they haven't been exposed to many lifestyles that are not their own. They live in a very waspy, rich environment and anything that's out of that paradigm feels scary and too foreign to them to accept immediately. But once they're confronted with it, I think they handle it well.

But it's like anybody, a lot of public figures - I think of politicians who need to have a gay child in order to understand why that's an issue that they should throw their weight behind, in terms of any sort of civil rights and liberties.

Kristen Stewart: And I understand, but I also don't.

Mackenzie Davis: Yeah, I was getting to a criticism of those politicians. Where you're like, "I'm happy you came around to it. It's so weird that you needed to be related to someone to have just the basic shred of empathy that most people are able to muster up.”

They need to be exposed to it, and they haven't been exposed yet.

Could you guys talk a little bit about working with this cast? In particular, we don't know a lot about Dan Levy's character. We heard he's playing Abby’s best friend and we all love him.

Kristen Stewart: I am so in love with Dan. It's insane. It was so important for whoever played Abby's best friend to be a really grounded reflection of who she is – obviously, because we don't have a whole lot of time to develop the characters before we're thrust into this precarious situation.

He's written in a way that is so nuanced and neurotic, but also broadly funny. And I think that he is so perfect, because when he really brings it home and wants to connect, and he comes from a place of true understanding of what the story is and how heavy and hard it is - it can then be funny. But only, first, it needs to be completely understood from the inside. And he's so unbelievably funny.

He's so destabilized by my leaning into convention. I want to ask her dad for his blessing; I want to do it all the right ways, and he's just like, "I thought that we had a pact to be Others forever!" You know what I mean? So, it's really funny because it also acknowledges how weird it is to lean in towards something that is not welcoming to you.

But she's a romantic, so it's really sweet. Dan's amazing. The entire cast is so great. We've said it a million times to each other every single day, all of us go, "We love our jobs. We love the opportunity to tell stories with people that we're drawn to." But this is such an extreme version of that. It's so wild that everyone is so wonderful.

Mackenzie Davis: We’re so in love with each other. And they’re so talented. You've lived with it longer than I have, but I had this script for a year before we started shooting, so I'm very familiar with all the scenes in it. And yet every single scene that we've done, when Mary Steenburgen's doing it and Victor Garber's doing it, you're like, "Oh my God! I didn't know it was like that. It's so much better than it already was, which was great!" It's just so cool to watch them work.

What is it that you look for in a script? What stood out about this one in particular that made you want to jump in and take the role?

Mackenzie Davis: Well, I was just saying that a lot of the time, before anything else you're like, "Can I feel these words in my mouth?" You start mouthing them and being like, "These don't fit in my mouth for some reason, and I don't know why." That's just a very basic nervous system test of if it feels right to you.

And then I think, especially in a genre movie like this, we understand the parameters of a romantic comedy. We know everything's going to be okay in the end. There are very specific beats that take you through this story, and while accepting those and embracing the genre elements of this, what makes it smart and new? Or not even new, but authentic and empathetic and fully felt? Not just relying on the convention to carry us through the story, but that each beat of the convention has been fully fleshed out.

It's like, "Well, this is the part where we have this pratfall thing," but it feels purposeful and important and urgent. And I felt like the script had everything, and also such a distinct voice. Clea and Mary, who wrote the script, just have such distinct comedic sensibilities.

Kristen Stewart: It's so funny. I loved the script. It felt like a huge relief. It didn't feel obliged to be overwrought, but it's so tender.

I think with a Christmas movie, like she said, knowing that everything's going to be okay allows for you to... I don't want to be too specific. It's nice to not highlight something so overtly, because that is in itself self-conscious. But it doesn't shy away from what it is, which is a really beautiful love story and a coming out story about two women, and it doesn't exist yet. I would have been so jealous and also very excited to see it coming together without me, but I belong here.

For a queer person, the scene feels familiar: you go home for the holidays, and that's when the conversations happen. Does it feel like you're telling a very relatable story in that way, or that you're representing that experience?

Kristen Stewart: Yeah. I have so many close friends that I’ve intimately unpacked these stories with and laughed about them and been enraged about them and told them like, "You don't have to..."

But I personally have never had to do it. I've never had anyone hide me. So no, but yes - because all my friends have. But I do have to say my parents are pretty wonderful about it.

I'd like to hear more about how you feel the film is speaking to an aspect that we may not get to see as much in cinema, and how it’s a huge relief.

Kristen Stewart: What I think is really interesting is that in certain moments that we have maybe considered delving into really deeply, or maybe we throw out the words and we improv it - it's always been rooted by Clea being like, "No, it's a genre movie." We have to hit the beats, because it is a situation of being able to hide the vegetables - which is something she says - in something that is commercial and fun. Not everything has to be facing this grave adversity in order to be itself, and still acknowledging that it's not completely easy.

It's something that is earned, but not something that is fought so hard for. It doesn't need to be all about how much it hurts to be unacknowledged, even though that's an element of it. They also really know themselves very well, and there's a comfort in that. I think that a lot of times people on the outside of that project this sympathy. It's like, "I don't need that. I'm actually fine. But this is how I got there.” Do you know what I mean? So, that's cool. That's what felt relieving about it.

Source

Kristen and the 'Happiest Season' cast interview with LA Times

“There’s something so nice about watching a Christmas rom-com and knowing it ends with everything being fine,” said Davis. “I’m OK to go along this journey, and I can be scared when they fight, and I can be sad in this moment, and I could laugh, but ultimately, there’s this certainty that it concludes [and] it’s so nice to know that everything’s gonna be OK in the end.”

Directed by Clea DuVall, “Happiest Season,” out now on Hulu, was born from her desire to see holiday fare that reflected her own experiences.

“I’ve always been such a huge fan of holiday movies, but … if there was an LGBTQ+ character in a holiday film, they were always in the background or just sort of thrown in to diversify an otherwise ‘normal’ family,” said DuVall. “Once I had transitioned into writing and directing, I realized that I could be the person who made that movie, and it was this very powerful, inspiring moment.”

“Happiest Season” is the second feature directed by the veteran actress who wrote, directed and starred in 2016’s “The Intervention.” And although she had started conceptualizing the characters and working on an outline on her own, progress stalled while acting projects kept DuVall busy. It wasn’t until she met cowriter Mary Holland (who also appears in the film as Harper’s sister Jane) while working on “Veep” that a script came together.

“We just really connected as human beings, and she was so funny and warm,” said DuVall. “And writing is such a lonely experience that I thought it would be so much more fun to work on a comedy with someone, especially someone who really made me laugh.

After sending a draft of the script to Temple Hill’s Isaac Klausner, who joined the project as a producer, they eventually chose to move forward at Sony’s TriStar Pictures, one of a number of studios where it was surprisingly well-received.

Surprising because it arrives without precedent. “Happiest Season” was intended to hit theaters as the first lesbian holiday rom-com released by a major studio, but plans had to change as the COVID-19 pandemic upended norms such as watching anything inside a theater.

“Before we moved to Hulu, people would ask me about the movie and approaching the place where I was going to have to encourage people to go to a movie theater started feeling very wrong to me, and on a moral level, just not something I was willing to do,” said DuVall, who despite the circumstances feels the streamer is a great home for her film. “It is more meaningful to me that people will be able to watch it safely from their homes with their family, and that maybe people who wouldn’t have gone to see it in the theater will now see it and get something out of it that they didn’t know they needed.”

Despite this minor setback, “Happiest Season” remains revolutionary for putting a queer couple at the center of a mainstream genre that is synonymous with heteronormativity. It’s significant even in a year that the TV powerhouses of Christmas rom-coms, including Hallmark and Lifetime, have also added more inclusive offerings to their lineups. This one is a major studio production directed by an out filmmaker, featuring an award-winning queer lead and other well-known LGBTQ actors in supporting roles.

“It was such a huge relief and pleasure and delight to work with a fellow queer woman on a movie like this because we are well past this stage,” said Stewart of working with DuVall. “It just felt so good to remember together funny things about what it was like to feel more uncomfortable. I wouldn’t have been able to do that with someone who hadn’t also gone through it.”

While Stewart advocates the importance of uplifting underrepresented voices, she doesn’t believe in hard and fast rules limiting who can tell what stories.

“I don’t think you need to be gay to be telling a gay story,” Stewart said. “Mackenzie’s a straight woman. She’s one of the most present, open, aware, honest people. I know that we feel the same way about loving other humans. So I just knew she was the partner for me in this movie.”

The queer love story of “Happiest Season” also stands out because although there have been more LGBTQ filmmakers making LGBTQ movies in recent years, these films are more often than not indies and happy endings can be few and far between.

“Typically with a queer story, my experience with watching movies is that you’re always sort of on the edge of your seat going, ‘Are they going to be OK?’” said Stewart. “Because that really does reflect a true experience. So it was so cool to see something [where] you know it’s going to work out. That these people just sort of need to get through this, but that they’re clearly in love and going to be together.”

For DuVall, leaning into all of the rules of Christmas movies and rom-coms was key because audiences deserve to see authentic LGBTQ stories with happy endings.

“Really nailing that tone was so important for the story ... sothat we could then transition into what the movie is really about, which is something very real,” said DuVall.

But both Davis and Stewart, who are better known for their more dramatic work, explained that they had a tendency stray away from that tone in their performances.

“We had to be reminded constantly by Clea what genre movie we were making,” said Davis. “I just really wanted to honor this story because it was personal to so many people that were going to watch the movie and so many people who were in the movie, and I imposed a lot of pressure on myself. It just felt very important to me. But I just dove so deep into the tragedy of the situation … and Clea would just come into scenes and be like, ‘Stop. It’s not that movie. It is a comedy.’ Having her recalibrate us was essential.”

“I always kind of lean away from stuff that I feel may be cliche or trite,” said Stewart. “And every single time Clea would come back and go ‘Look, you kind of just have to get on your tippy toes and kiss her.’ You just have to do the thing. You want to to give the people what they want.”

Ultimately, “Happiest Season” could be summed up as a coming-out story with all the holiday trimmings. But it’s a type of coming-out story that is rarely reflected on the big screen both because Harper is quite confident in her identity outside of her parents’ orbit and because it’s within a comedy.

“This is a woman who is so self-realized,” said Stewart. “When you meet [Harper] in the beginning, she’s more self-assured than I am, even. She’s more confident. Like she really knows herself.”

“Coming-out stories are always so fraught and dramatic,” said DuVall. “To be able to see one in the context of a comedy, while still honoring the experience was really, really important to me. We all have elements of ourselves that we’re trying to come to terms with, and for Harper it is being her authentic self with her family, which is something that I think a lot of people can relate to.”

For audiences that have become more accustomed to increased onscreen LGBTQ representation (particularly in television) and seeing queer story lines beyond the coming-out experience, Harper’s story might feel old-fashioned. But Stewart notes that the normalcy and comfort some see around coming out in 2020 is just one perspective

And DuVall points out how “the assumption that you’re straight is everywhere, so that in itself is like a very light homophobia that is ingrained into our world” and reminds us that coming out is still a big deal for many people

She also points to moves by the government enacting anti-LGBTQ legislation, in particular those targeting the transgender community, as well as the power of conservative courts to turn back hard-fought rights.

“Homophobia is not gone,” said DuVall. “Aggression towards LGBTQ+ people is not gone. So to anyone who’s saying ‘Aren’t we past coming out?’ No. It is a big deal. There are still people who are in the closet, and they are f— terrified. … [So] to be able to tell a story about someone coming out that is not a tragedy, that is a comedy, that is warm and bright and hopeful, that has a happy ending, is so important.”

But DuVall and Stewart both look forward to a day when things have changed.

“I think it’s cool to not pretend like it’s not hard to come out for some people even though for others it’s become really normal,” said Stewart. “Movies always are a little bit behind the times slightly. We’re always playing a couple years of catch up.

“I’m really excited to start seeing coming-out stories, queer stories from really young perspectives and how that’s gonna shift. What does it feel like for a younger person who doesn’t understand that it would be weird to not come out when you were 10 or say that you always knew you were gay?”

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Video: 'Happiest Season' cast interview with Yahoo

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Kristen and the 'Happiest Season' cast interview + portraits for the NY Times

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No one imagines that a Christmas rom-com can be renegade. And yet “Happiest Season,” about a couple played by Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis, manages to be at once deeply, warmingly conventional and surprisingly radical, simply by focusing on a pair of women.

“I just wanted it to feel very, very relatable — but then also completely new,” said Clea DuVall, the director and co-writer with Mary Holland, who also stars as a loopy sister.

DuVall, who is an actress too (“Veep”), has said her own role in the seminal 2000 comedy “But I’m a Cheerleader,” in which she played a gay teenager sent to conversion camp, helped her out of the closet. She came out to her own mother on Christmas Day and modeled Stewart’s character, Abby, after herself. The production included other L.G.B.T.Q. stars, with Daniel Levy as Abby’s scene-stealing bestie and a soundtrack, courtesy of the producer Justin Tranter, performed by queer artists.

They shot in the cold in Pittsburgh — DuVall adamantly wanted that winter light — wrapping just two weeks before Covid-19 upended life.

In a recent video interview, DuVall, Stewart, Davis and Holland — beaming in from different locations, with Stewart’s dogs occasionally barking in the background — spoke about missing each other and somehow not yet getting the hang of Zoom interviews. (“Yesterday I had it on Gallery View, but then I just was looking at my own face the whole time,” Davis admitted.)

“Happiest Season,” which premieres on Hulu on Thanksgiving, was the last big project for all of them — a time capsule and a holiday rolled into one. “Christmas movies are so specific and they become a part of our lives in a way that other movies don’t,” DuVall said. “None of us had any idea just how much we would all need that comfort when the movie came out.”

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Kristen and Mackenzie, your characters at the beginning have such a sweet relationship and real chemistry. Did you build their back story to create that intimacy?

STEWART Right before we started shooting, you and I maybe had a couple of conversations. Do we meet in college? Are you older?

DAVIS We talked so much about our own current or past relationship experiences, what we like, things that felt really specific to our own lives. That’s for me more relevant than the checklist of, OK, we met then, what were our friend groups like when they merged? That stuff is important to a degree but it doesn’t show up in the same way as, like —

STEWART How do you catch a person’s eye.

DAVIS Exactly.

Stewart said she wanted the romance to feel as if it were about “just two women in love” who happen to do a Christmas movie.

Stewart said she wanted the romance to feel as if it were about “just two women in love” who happen to do a Christmas movie.Credit...Photo illustration by Sam Cannon for The New York Times

STEWART I always felt as long as we felt solid going in, we could be like an aspirational, really self-assured couple in a way that strips any kind of discomfort or internalized homophobia that is undeniably applied to same-sex couples in commercial projects. Like, did we seem like lesbians? Or were we just two women in love, and then we do a Christmas movie?

Tell me more about characterizing queer characters onscreen vs. what has historically been represented.

STEWART I’ve had a lot of experience with confusing people and having it be misconstrued as my confusion. It’s like, I’m sorry, you need to catch up. Sometimes I didn’t wear heels when I was younger [and that was commented on]. Wardrobe choices — it became more and more evident that optics really matter, because they’ve been violently used against me.

You know, the word “lesbian” has a negative connotation to me that I have now tried to strip because I grew up being like oh, I’m not a lesbian. Because I hadn’t dated girls yet. But, like, that was violent. In retrospect — just because I have so much of pretty much every other type of privilege — that doesn’t mean that I have to not acknowledge that sucked and felt physical.

So it was important for me in this movie to acknowledge it and be like hey, I’m going to nicely invite you towards me, rather than feel like I’m feeding into an alienation that I have been sucked into my whole life.

Davis said she and Stewart didn’t work on a back story for their characters so much as discuss their own experiences.

Davis said she and Stewart didn’t work on a back story for their characters so much as discuss their own experiences.Credit...Photo illustration by Sam Cannon for The New York Times

DuVALL I think people don’t even realize how rampant homophobia is and how casual it is. And that it does really have a lasting impact.

I so appreciated making this movie with Kristen, because I felt she could understand it in a way that not a lot of people can. I was very lucky early in my career to be in “But I’m a Cheerleader” and play a character that felt like me for the first time, and also seeing that for the first time [onscreen] — it was so major. Creating Abby was really wanting to bring that kind of specificity back into movies.

Mary, you and Clea were co-stars on “Veep.” How did you go from that to writing a Christmas rom-com together?

HOLLAND Our characters on “Veep” never had scenes together, so we never got to be together on set. But I would go to the cast table reads and right away, we sort of locked in with each other and had this chemistry. She told me about this idea, and I was a thousand percent on board. Clea really took a shot in the dark with me. We were pretty much strangers when she asked me to write with her.

Did you have a list of Christmas movie must-haves, like that image of a door with a giant wreath on it opening, which seems like a staple of all holiday movies?

STEWART I’ve seen the movie like three times now — [jokingly] because I’m obsessed with myself. But when the door opens, I feel like the movie gets up and starts to run. And you’re like oh, my God, wait, I’m supposed to run with you? I love it.

DuVALL In the writing we didn’t really watch stuff — we built the world on our own. But once I got into working with our production designer, Theresa Guleserian, and our [director of photography], John Guleserian, that’s when we started creating those iconic images and [making] them feel like Christmas without just putting up a bunch of tinsel and lights.

The soundtrack is also totally Christmas-y. But why no Mariah?

DuVALL Because Mariah’s Christmas song is very expensive.

DuVall based Stewart’s character on her own experiences.

DuVall based Stewart’s character on her own experiences.Credit...Photo illustration by Sam Cannon for The New York Times

Kristen and Mackenzie, how do you balance being funny with the movie’s big emotional arcs?

DAVIS Clea would tell us this all the time — don’t try and make it something that it’s not. Don’t shy away from the big romance and don’t shy away from the slapstick and the big emotional moments, because all those things together are part of this genre. So even though your instinct as an actor might be to make it a little quieter, all of those things actually thrive if you invest the most into each of those elements.

STEWART Going back and forth from the comedy to being emotional or hurt was, like, traumatic for me. I would be mad at Mackenzie in the morning.

Holland met DuVall through “Veep” but the two hadn’t written anything together until “Happiest Season.”

Holland met DuVall through “Veep” but the two hadn’t written anything together until “Happiest Season.”Credit...Photo illustration by Sam Cannon for The New York Times

Dan Levy has a memorable scene talking about the coming out process. How did that develop?

DuVALL His speech was actually almost an afterthought. I was needing to create sides for auditions to see if this actor can do drama.

And then when I got into it I was like oh, this is maybe the most important part of the movie. And it was something that I hadn’t ever really articulated for myself. Because I came out and I think I just brushed it off. Then when I thought about it and that came out — he delivered that so beautifully, I would watch it in the tent and just cry.

STEWART Also Dan, I was so nervous. He’s so funny. I didn’t know him before. I was like, dude, is he going to think I’m like a dumb loser? Are we going to like each other? Because I’ve had experiences with comedians that at first you go, oh, this is going to be really fun, and then you’re like actually, I kind of just feel dumber around this person. And also there is a sort of one-uppy thing some really funny people have.

Dan is the most warm and welcoming and truly observational and neurotic funny person, without ever taking anyone down or being weird and negative. I was like oh, man, it’s going to be so easy to love this guy.

This movie made me realize that there’s a certain amount of tension and release that can be good, but really you do your best work when you’re supported and feel seen. Rather than fighting to feel that — which I have also loved doing, but I’m growing out of. I don’t have the energy for it.

Also, it feels so good to watch a movie where the jokes are so familiar to me and my friends, with relationships between two girls. It feels amazing to take the piss out of stuff that hurts, because that means you can release it.

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