Gerard Butler discusses voicing Santa Claus in The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland .
He also discusses the physicality involved with voice acting.
Butler talks about the How to Train Your Dragon live-action, and shares details about his costume.
Right in time for the holiday season, The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland has arrived to deliver the merriment and joy that so many of us need right now. Based on Carys Bexington and Kate Hindley’s similarly titled children’s book from 2019, the animated feature stars a real who’s who of talent, including Emilia Clarke, Simone Ashley, and—most importantly—Gerard Butler as Santa Claus.
The delightful tale is a truly inspired take on the classic story of Santa Claus, as it sends him down the rabbit hole and straight into a reimagined version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. In this version of the story, the Queen of Hearts (Clarke) has banned Christmas in Wonderland, after the White Rabbit failed to get her letter to Santa on time when she was just a little princess. When the letter does finally arrive in the North Pole, Santa sets out to ensure that the little princess gets exactly what she wished for, but little does he know she’s all grown up and more than ready to lop off the head of Santa and all of his reindeer. The film is an absolute delight, and delivers a much-needed message about growth, forgiveness, and trying to become a better person.
Ahead of the film’s US release date today, I had the pleasure of chatting with Gerard Butler about his take on Santa Claus, the fact that he seems to only sing in movies every ten years, whether he would take on an action-hero Santa role, and lastly, about working on the highly anticipated live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon. You can watch the full interview in the player above or read on for the transcript.
Gerard Butler’s Santa Claus Is So “Irrepressible in His Zest For Life”
COLLIDER: First of all, I just have to say this film was so adorable. I loved it so much. It had me thinking, do you have in your rider that, like, every 10 years you get to gift us with a musical performance because Phantom of the Opera was in 2004, How to Train Your Dragon was 2014, and now The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland . What’s the plan for 2034?
GERARD BUTLER: [Laughs] 2034, I gotta get there first. But 2034, what could that be? I don’t know, but you’re right. It was actually a limitation, more like a restriction. I’ve been told, “You are not allowed to release any kind of singing. Once every 10 years, so people can get over the last time.”
That’s not true! [Laughs]
BUTLER: I’m chomping at the bit, like, “When’s that 10 years up? I want to sing again!” Everybody else is like, “No, you still got a couple of years. Just wait. Just be patient.”
Well, I’m glad that you have. Every time Christmas and holiday movies come out, it makes me think about the movies that were really foundational to me as a child around the holiday season. I’m curious, are there any holiday movies that still kind of evoke that childlike nostalgia when you catch them on television somewhere?
BUTLER: I don’t catch them now because I’m definitely a little older, so my childhood Christmas movies were The Wizard of Oz, which I guess is now coming out as Wicked. But The Wizard of Oz wasn’t just my child[hood] movie. I feel like in Scotland, that’s the movie we saw it every year, and that’s what I associated with Christmas, which is weird because, now that I think about it, it’s not a particularly Christmas movie, but that was my Christmas movie. And then there were other ones along the way — It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, those kinds of movies.
Recently, I haven’t had a movie that I associate with Christmas, and maybe that’s part of the reason I was like, “Well, this is definitely a Christmas movie,” but it’s definitely not a down-the-line, on-the-nose Christmas movie. It’s this mishmash of these two fairy tales together; Santa Claus down the rabbit hole hanging out with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. You really get a sense of both fairy tales. You get a sense of all those characters in a way that reminds you almost of how you would have imagined it as kids, except it’s funky and weird with all these modern references and surprises like GPS and oat lattes.
I know! I love that Santa and I have the same coffee order.
BUTLER: Right! And the reindeer together are hilarious. They’re taking sweepstakes because Santa’s always messing up. “What’s he gonna do wrong this Christmas? Is he gonna crash, is he gonna go the wrong way, is he gonna get the day wrong?” And he does get it wrong, as well. All those relationships, those dynamics between him and his reindeer, and the fact that he walks around like, “Yeah, look at me. This is amazing,” and they’re like, “Get out of the way! Get out of the way! We’re trying to do our job.” He’s just so irrepressible in his zest for life, and he loves doing what he does.
Weirdly, that’s kind of humorous, but it comes to be the thing that is the message of the movie is that he sticks at that. No matter how square you wanna call him, no matter how much he knocks people the wrong way, he’s always gonna try to do his best and be good and stick it out, and that lesson will come through. That’s powerful in the end.
It was definitely an emotion that came through in the film when I was watching it. Looking at the two animated projects you’ve worked on, there’s a difference between the two performances, and I’m curious for you, what have you learned from working in animation more about your voice and what it is capable of doing?
BUTLER: Definitely this time, I used much more of my physicality for Santa because I knew there was a lot more that I could get at opposite ends of the continent with his voice. You’re not seeing what I’m doing, so even when I was singing, I’m doing little dances and moves, and trying to imagine a sound comes out from here, from there, from the back of your head. I wanted him to have all these different sounds that Santa would make to express the multitude of things going on in that movie. So yeah, I felt like I had a lot more fun and used my physicality a lot more.
I’m very critical of myself, so whenever I watch the movie I’m often like, “Oh, I could have gone more there. I could have tried a little more there.” So, here I felt I had more fun because he is more goofy and he still is bombastic. There are times when he is very quiet, there are times when he’s a little bit confused, and then there are times when he’s like, “Come on!” to really enjoy all those different kinds of vocal frequencies and notes and sounds.
That’s what I love about animation. It’s so liberating, and it lets you do so much more than you’re able to do in live-action.
BUTLER: Absolutely.
Gerard Butler Has a Great Pitch For Where a ‘Night Before Christmas in Wonderland’ Sequel Could Go
I was actually thinking, you’ve obviously made the jump from animation to live-action with How to Train Your Dragon , but I’m curious now that you’ve played Santa Claus, do you see yourself ever playing Santa Claus down the line? There are so many action movies that make Santa Claus a badass action hero these days.
BUTLER: The thing is, that’s true, but I feel like it’s kind of been done. It’s been done a couple of times now, so I don’t know if having played Santa in the animated movie… However, maybe there’s gonna be more of these Santa the animated movies. Where could he go next? It’s endless if you want to kind of push him into somebody else’s fairy tale, too, and go, “How would he be in this one? How would he be in this one?”
So, that’s definitely an opportunity if you do your job and get people to come and see this movie. If this is received like I hope it would be received, I think a lot of people will leave going, “That was awesome seeing Prancer and Dancer and Vixen and little Boots the Elf down hanging out with the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts and the card guards and the Mad Hatter!” They’ll go, “Where could that go to next?”
I’d love to see them come back and see how Wonderland has changed now that she’s really embraced the Christmas spirit all over again. There’s so much.
BUTLER: Oh, that’s cool, too. I never thought of that. Yeah, they could swing by there on the way to whoever the hell it is they’re gonna meet. Godzilla. That’d be a fun one.
There you go! Godzilla is big these days. I’d love to see him bring joy to Godzilla!
BUTLER: I know. Can you imagine Godzilla smiling and bringing Christmas presents to children? That would be the day. By the way, it was crazy, while I was rehearsing the songs for this in New York every day with the producers and writers for Greenland [Migration], working on that script whilst getting wig fittings and beard fittings and helmet fittings for How to Train Your Dragon, in the live-action that I was doing, whilst filming the Julian Schnabel movie in New York, where I was playing this insane killer that kills for the mafia that’s also kind of weird and perverted and unpredictable and strangely kind of lovable, and also playing the Pope from the 15th century in that movie.
What else was happening? I mean, it was insane. I was wearing, like, 65 hats. I’m in writing sessions, costume fittings, makeup fittings for one other movie whilst practicing singing for this with Sonia Jones, the most amazing singing coach, and then finishing filming in New York. It was like I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
That is incredible. I don’t know how you would have kept track of all of that. I did have one How to Train Your Dragon question, which I think might be a funny one. Was it freezing cold because I saw you all filmed in Northern Ireland in, like, January to May? And I know it’s so cold.
BUTLER: Yes, it was very cold and kind of miserable because we went at the worst time. It was December, or really starting in January. I had a hotel room that had glass right down by my bath, and for some reason, I had decided I was going to take ice baths every morning. So, at five in the morning, my [physical therapist] — because I’m like, “I’m not going to put the ice in the bath,” — would come in and fill my bath with ice, and I would get in this ice bath, but outside it would be dark with wind blowing, soaking wet. You know how freezing it was. At least if you’re doing an ice bath, and you’re in LA it’s a blue sky. This was like, “I am going out into that.”
But I had seven layers, thick layers, and a thick beard, and then I had a kind of bearskin or wolfskin over it. It was heavy as shit. When I had my sword and my shield and the helmet, which was heavy, and all those layers with the clasps that went around, it was 90 pounds, my costume. I was, in the middle of the coldest day, soaking wet from sweat inside because it was like a furnace in there.
So, I guess I had the benefit of I was rarely cold while everybody else was like this. I was like, “Yeah, my beard’s coming off because of the sweat.” You gotta stick it back down. My eyebrows were coming off. I had to stick it down because I was sweating so much.
The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland is streaming now on Hulu in the US, and will launch on Sky Cinema on Friday, December 13, 2024, in the UK.