FIT FOR CHRISTMAS: Rebecca Budig Previews the ‘Cute, Charming’ CBS Holiday Film

In the new CBS holiday film FIT FOR CHRISTMAS (airing Sunday, December 4), Audrey (Amanda Kloots), a fitness instructor who moved back to her hometown after personal and professional complications in New York, fights to save the local recreation center—which is at risk of being turned into a resort property.

Helping rally the town is Audrey’s friend, Lisa (Rebecca Budig), who has her own stake in keeping things as-is: She and her husband own a coffee shop which is located in the rec center.

“She’s stressed about it, of course,” Budig tells Give Me My Remote. “She’s got her husband, who is a great support system, [but] they’re also trying to get pregnant at this time. [Now, with the couple possibly losing their shop’s location], they are like, ‘Well, we’re just gonna have to find a new place.’ I think they’re sort of resigned to it, because I think they’ve lost hope. And that’s where Audrey comes in: She gives them a little burst of hope.”

For Budig, whose television career has spanned daytime (ALL MY CHILDREN, GENERAL HOSPITAL, GUIDING LIGHT) and primetime shows (including L.A.’S FINEST, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, CSI, CASTLE, HOPE & FAITH), this marks her first Christmas film.

“I thought [the film] was really cute, charming, and I auditioned for it and I got it,” she recalls. “I love what Anna [White] and Amanda wrote. And so it was nice to have them there [during filming], for sure, because they felt like they were super open to making it the best it could be. But I felt like it was already a pretty epic and solid place we started.”

As for the Christmas of it all, “it was really just like any other acting job, only that it really puts you in the mood for Christmas in July or mid-August,” Budig says with a laugh. “But once I was a part of it, I was like, ‘Oh, this feels good.’ It feels good when you’re shooting it. You’re happy and as a collective it’s a good feeling.”

That good feeling translated off-set, and the group—including actors Paul Greene, Darryl Hinds, and Barclay Hope, as well as director Jessica Harmon—grew close. (The team bonded so much, they joked their next project together should be a sitcom.)

“We just had fun on set,” Budig says. “We laughed a lot together. And Amanda was eager to learn and was just really open and sweet and present and it was really nice.”

“Darryl [who plays Lisa’s husband Jim], how he comes across on-screen is really how he is in person,” she continues. “He’s lovely, warm, kind, thoughtful—he’s just really, really, really sweet. So I lucked out, because we were in the same place: we both missed our families a lot and so we just really bonded over that.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One person Budig didn’t get a lot of screentime with is Hope, who plays Audrey’s father. Nonetheless, the duo bonded off-screen. “I really, really liked him a lot; I thought he was so good,” she says. “He really brought a weight to everything. He just brought a whole other element, and I just thought it was so natural. I just really loved being in scenes with him. I didn’t really get to interact with him much, but I would have loved to be able to interact with him a little bit more because he’s so lovely.”

“There was just a really special friendship that developed between all of us,” she continues. “It’s rare to bond with people like that, at least in my experience. I definitely have friends from the soaps, but…there’s a lot of people. But when we have a small group of people like that [on FIT FOR CHRISTMAS], you’re lucky if you also gel, and we did.”

FIT FOR CHRISTMAS, Sunday, December 4, 8:30/7:30c, CBS

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