A Holiday I Do is now available to rent or buy on tellofilms.com
BY NIC CROSARA, IMAGES BY TELLO
In Tello’s latest lesbian Christmas film, A Holiday I Do, Lindsay Hicks stars as the slightly frazzled but warm and cheerful Jane. The festive season can be a lot for many, but for Jane, the stakes are certainly high this year. She’s a single mum in charge of planning Mark, her ex-husband’s bachelor party. Despite their past, the two are best friends and she’s to be his best (wo)man at his upcoming Christmas wedding. On top of this, she’s juggling running the family farm following the loss of her father. As if this wasn’t enough to contend with, chaos ensues when Jane finds herself falling for Mark’s wedding planner Sue, who is played by Rivkah Reyes. If you like your Queermas romcoms to be as cosy and comforting as a hot beverage, then this is sure to become a new all-time favourite for you.
Joining our transatlantic Zoom call, I’m delighted to immediately discover that Lindsay is even more charming and warm than I had hoped. She’s bright-eyed with a big smile on her face, despite the fact it’s 9 am for her. Fairy lights decorate her walls and her dog Bagel is pottering about behind her. She also happens to be wearing a jumper with an illustration of Bagel on it, which she proudly shows off to me. And incase you were wondering, Bagel was with her throughout the shooting of A Holiday I Do and really enjoyed it. Lindsay is clearly and undeniably a dog person. But she’s also an animal person and has done a lot of work within the animal rights space. We love to see queer folks making a change both onscreen and offscreen!
So what was it like starring in this heartwarming seasonal romcom? Here’s what Lindsay had to say…
The opposites attract romance between Jane and Sue was fantastic to watch. What was it like building the onscreen chemistry with Rivkah?
It was very easy to do. Maybe I’m not meant to say that. Maybe I’m meant to make it seem like I had to do all this hard intense work. But from the minute I met Rivkah I felt very connected to them and felt like we were there to work hard and embody these people as well as we possibly could. Our senses of humour really aligned at times, we were both dedicated to the project and I think all of those things coming together just worked out in a way that I hope comes across as chemistry. We were also just friends. We weren’t home, we were away, we were in Michigan together shooting this thing. We were driving everywhere together, we were battling snow storms together, we were just doing really epic Target runs together, so we had a lot of time to bond and become really good friends and that probably is where a lot of it came from.
I’m really glad that this film wasn’t a coming out story for either Jane or Sue. But I liked that it still navigated Jane’s backstory and coming out journey through her dynamic with Mark. What was it like for you to portray this?
It was honestly such a wonderful thing to have a character where it wasn’t about becoming who you are. I got to show up and embody someone who had already done the work on themselves, who had done the work in their family, who had found the courage to communicate their experience – even though I’m sure it was terrifying – and then have the lovely experience, of whatever point it happened, her family love, respect accept and even celebrate her queerness.
It feels like a wonderful magical fantasy land or an ideal scenario for a queer person who has come out. To have everyone accept and support them as someone who has come out later in life. Her kid’s life kind of depends on that happy familial relationship and they really found that. I always think about how the conversation would have gone between Jane and Mark and how hard that must have been for both of them. Breakups are never easy. Especially when there’s a kid. I feel like whatever happened between the two of them, they managed to have this beautiful friendship, and it makes me believe that it was an unconditional love between the two of them.
It was a wonderful thing to get to jump into where it wasn’t a battle of identity. Yes, it’s important and I’m glad those stories exist for queer people. I know there were times in my life when I really needed stories like that to help me sort through what was going on for me and I know that many other people feel the same way. But I also think that there’s something beyond that. Getting to see queer people doing things that everyone does regardless of their gender preference or experience is also really valuable. Like sometimes gays can just be gay! And it doesn’t matter.
What is your favourite scene from A Holiday I Do?
This is a hard one for me because I immediately want to say where I got cry with the horse. But I know that’s kind of a weird thing to say. All my scenes with Rivkah were so fun. I had such a great time working with them, they were so smart. We rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed for the scene where we bumped into each other for the first time. We were like, “How are we gonna make this look real?” and we were really just running into each other so hard. Like actually spilling coffee all over ourselves – that scarf had to be thrown away because it was so drenched in coffee – it was WWE status running into each other. We both just put our videos on the line for the art of the Christmas romcom.
Before our time comes to an end, is there anything else you’d like to address that hasn’t been touched on yet?
Something I also love about this film is that Paul and Alicia Schneider went out of their way to make sure that their two leads were queer people. There was representation in front of the camera and behind the camera there was a ton of representation and it was a beautiful thing. The space was always super safe and super diverse and it was a really lovely thing to realise the effort being put in on that front. Part of the proceeds of this film will go to The Trevor Project which I also love.
Lindsay also runs Little Walnut Productions with Moby.
A Holiday I Do is available to rent or buy now on tellofilms.com.
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I was searching for a lesbian themed movie and this one was a happy surprise.
It’s a little to “Hallmarky” for me,but it’s cute .
I wish it was that easy to have ‘ come out’ in my town.
I loved the scenery and the the barn idea. It made me wish I could have a wedding in that scenario.