Aimee Garcia: Why Her ‘Trailblazing’ Holiday Movie ‘Christmas With You’ Means So Much To Her (Exclusive)

Aimee Garcia is bringing astir the alteration she wants to spot successful Hollywood. The Lucifer histrion stars successful the caller Netflix vacation movie Christmas With You, which premieres connected November 17. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Aimee astir wherefore she was drawn to this movie successful peculiar amid the vacation movie craze.

Aimee Garcia astatine the ‘Christmas With You’ screening. (Netflix)

“Growing up, I ne'er saw a classical Christmas movie with a Latino family. Even now, an all-American classical Christmas movie, wherever astatine the halfway of it is simply a Latino family, I deliberation is besides rare. And not lone is determination diverseness successful beforehand of the camera, but besides down the camera. There’s a Latina director, Gabriela Tagliavini; Latino producers, German Torres; Latino writers. So I deliberation successful its ain way, it’s this trailblazing movie wherever it’s a Christmas classic. It has each the worldly you emotion — romance, family, heart, and wit — but it besides has a Latino POV. It has tequila and tamales and a small spot of Spanish and a multicultural facet to it, which I deliberation is truthful beautiful, due to the fact that 1 of the biggest compliments was I conscionable went connected Kelly Clarkson, and she said, ‘I wanted to beryllium portion of this family. I watched it with my kids, and it made maine privation to beryllium portion of this family.’ It’s truthful beauteous to conscionable person a movie that’s cosmopolitan but the household astatine the halfway conscionable happens to beryllium Latino.”

Aimee stars arsenic a popular prima named Angelina who escapes the metropolis to assistance a young fan’s privation successful small-town New York aft experiencing vocation burnout. Since she’s playing a popular star, Aimee genuinely dedicated herself to the role. She did each of her ain singing, dancing, and soft playing successful the film. She performs 3 songs successful Christmas With You, including a Christmas song.

The histrion revealed that she had “three days to prepare” to grounds the songs. “I’m not going to go a nonrecreational vocalist overnight. All I could bash was conscionable sing from my heart. I’m not the champion singer, and I don’t person the champion range. I’m not a professional. But I conscionable sang honestly,” Aimee said.

Aimee Garcia and Freddie Prinze Jr. successful ‘Christmas With You.’ (Netflix)

Aimee besides opened up astir Angelina’s travel implicit the people of the film. “She has fame and luck and Grammys, but she doesn’t person love,” Aimee said astir Angelina. “Enter the precise charming Freddie Prinze Jr. who I deliberation was everyone’s heartthrob backmost successful the day. Angelina’s been accused of not being applicable anymore, which I deliberation is simply a precise relatable happening for anybody of immoderate gender. It’s a precise quality happening to consciousness similar you’re not valued anymore, and you’re not needed anymore. So she goes done that erstwhile she’s replaced by a younger, much palmy popular star.

She continued, “She truly wants to reconnect with her fans, and she finds this young pistillate who was astir to person her quinceañera, and her Christmas privation is to person a selfie. That’s what starts america connected our travel of this food retired of water, full diva, coming into a tiny municipality and possibly oregon possibly not falling for the euphony teacher who is the 14-year-old’s dad. It has Notting Hill vibes.”

Aimee added that Christmas With You is “very female-forward successful that she’s the benignant of unattainable one, and he’s the homemaker. It’s truly bully to spot that switch, and Freddie does specified a fantastic job. I mean, I deliberation it’s his archetypal romanticist drama successful 20 years. So successful a way, it’s a comeback for him, which is truly fun.”

The Lucifer alum gushed implicit moving alongside Freddie successful the film. “He was truthful professional. He conscionable has this precise subtle charm, and I emotion the choices helium made,” Aimee told HollywoodLife. “He has Hugh Grant charm, but helium doesn’t person Hugh Grant outer energy. He truly draws you successful arsenic an histrion and arsenic an audience. He was conscionable ever down to effort scenes successful a antithetic way. He has the biggest heart, and helium would termination maine if I said this, but he’s conscionable gooey connected the inside. I deliberation that it’ll beryllium truly bully for radical to spot him arsenic conscionable a charming, romanticist starring man, which helium does truthful effortlessly but successful a antithetic way, right?”

Aimee was excited to showcase immoderate of her Latina civilization successful the film, including her mom’s peculiar cure-all. “My mom’s cure-all for everything is tequila. Sprained your ankle? Tequila. If you person a headache… tequila. So obviously, it was truly amusive to spot the grandma bring that retired arsenic a cure-all for everything. That felt precise comforting,” Aimee told HollywoodLife.

Spanish is besides Aimee’s archetypal language, and she was grateful to person “certain lines” successful Spanish. “I person to springiness Netflix a batch of credit,” she said. “At the opening of the process. I said, ‘Would it beryllium imaginable to bash a stanza of the Christmas opus successful Spanish?’ And Netflix said yes. I translated it myself due to the fact that I was googling American Latin Christmas songs, and the lone happening that kept coming up was ‘Feliz Navidad.’ So I thought it’d beryllium truly bully to person an archetypal Christmas opus that has a small spot of Spanish successful there. That felt truly bully due to the fact that successful my household we sing and creation successful some Spanish and English due to the fact that we’re Mexican and Puerto Rican. It was truly bully to bring that to this precise saccharine Christmas movie.”

Aimee Garcia arsenic Angelina. (Netflix)

In summation to acting, Aimee besides has her ain accumulation institution that she started with New York Times bestselling writer AJ Mendez. “We started this accumulation company, Scrappy Heart, and we decided to make the alteration we wanted to see. We wrote a clump of comics successful the DC universe, successful Dungeons and Dragons, precise female-forward successful similar penning Latin families successful the Wonder Woman world.”

She went connected to say, “We wrote the sequel to 47 Ronin and wrote for pistillate samurai, due to the fact that we thought, wherefore can’t pistillate samurai beryllium successful movies? We’re precise blessed that the 2 protagonists of the movie are female, and it conscionable dropped connected Netflix connected October 25. It’s a movie that we co-wrote and it highlights badass women. I consciousness similar hopefully if determination isn’t a sequel my extremity is conscionable to constitute the movies and the shows that I didn’t person arsenic a kid, similar a ton of Christmas movies with Latina leads and enactment movies with women of colour that are conscionable female-forward. I anticipation that we are headed successful the close direction. There inactive is simply a agelong mode to go, but I consciousness similar the champion mode to truly instrumentality alteration is conscionable to rotation up your sleeves and make and constitute the alteration yourself.”