ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY CHRISTMAS’ Austin Winsberg on Zoey’s Powers and What Didn’t Make the Cut

It was (eventually) a Merry Christmas for Zoey (Jane Levy) and her family in the Roku original film ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY CHRISTMAS, a continuation to the beloved NBC musical dramedy, ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST.

But as Zoey tried to navigate her first holiday season without her dad, Mitch (Peter Gallagher), she also had to contend with her powers—somehow—being transferred to her on-again boyfriend Max (Skylar Astin).

However, to pull it all off took something of a holiday miracle. The film came together in under four months, as they had to juggle the cast’s other commitments, time for prep, and, well, actually tying up some loose ends from the series, while setting a new path forward.

Here, ZOEY’S creator Austin Winsberg does a spoilery deep dive in what the film did and didn’t answer, what didn’t make it to screen, and what the future for the franchise might hold…

Max getting powers was a big part of what ended up being the series finale on NBC. If season 3 had happened, was the plan for him to lose the powers as quickly as he did in the movie? Or was it truncated because of the film format?
It was definitely something that I thought season 3 was gonna be a lot about: What is it like to be in a relationship with somebody else and be able to know exactly what’s going on in the other person’s head? I thought that was a funny romantic comedy complication; I really love romantic comedies. And I thought there were a lot of opportunities to explore what it means being in a relationship and both the people having powers, but also sort of exploring…I just thought it’d be fun one-offs, we can do glitch episodes with both of them. I had a lot of ideas of how to play the powers now with both of them having them the same time.

And I also thought the number one reason to give them to Max in the first place was to allow Jane [the chance] to sing and dance more. I don’t know if it would have lasted all of season 3, but I definitely had a lot of storylines in my head where it would have played out for a while, always kind of building to the reason why he got the powers, which was kind of what we end up with at the movie.

Is there room for other people to get the power in the future, or was this always just going to be for Max because of who he and Zoey are to each other?
I think it was a specific case in terms of how they could grow in a relationship and what I thought Max needed: to walk in her shoes and understand the power of the powers, to have more empathy for her, and to help them in their relationship. I think any time you can understand what your partner’s going through, it can only increase your levels of compassion and empathy for them. So, I felt like it was important for them and their story for him to get them.

I think if we were to go forward, it would just depend if the right conceit or idea came along to justify [anyone else getting it]. We talked about it at one point, like, is this like a superhero show? And typically in superhero shows, by season 3 or something, you find other people with the powers and [have] their own Justice League and all that. And I just wasn’t sure how much we wanted to lean into superhero tropes. And I do think there’s something special about Zoey being the one that has the powers; I’d be a little reluctant to give it to too many other people, unless it was maybe a glitch episode where everyone got it or something.

Given the uncertainty about where the show might go from there, was there any thought about possibly diving into the origins of the power in this film?
You know, I think that the mythology of the powers is interesting. Whenever I would be talking about it with the network—or sometimes in the writers room—people would kind of glaze over about it. People were more interested in the human, emotional stories and “What do you do now that you have them?” than leaning too heavily into the “Why?”

[Mitch] talks a lot about the need these powers have filled for Zoey. So I think it’s possible we could continue to talk about the MRI guy—was the earthquake [while she was in the] machine, was it the universe? We do a lot of talk in the series and in the movie about the universe giving her these powers for a reason. And so I think that we could continue to explore that. But it’s not as interesting to me as now that you have the powers what do you do with them and what can you learn from them?

Was there ever any conversation amongst the writers about having more people discover her powers in this film, or did you always want to keep it to who already knew in the series?
I feel like the more people that know, the less special they become, in a way. And I think that the end of the movie, we intentionally still kind of dot dot dot it, leave the door open a little bit.

That was the other thing: don’t completely end [the story], in case Roku or someone else wants more. I guess there could have been a version of the ending where everybody discovered the powers, but I don’t know what that would do for potential future storylines. And I’m not sure if I feel like that’s the right ending for people to know or not to know. I think there’s something kind of magical about it being Zoey’s own little secret that only a couple of people are privy to.

Mitch was an important part of the series’ DNA. Can you talk about the decision to incorporate his presence—and bring back Peter, physically—into the film?
First of all, my dad’s birthday was Christmas Day. And so Christmas was always interesting at our house. We’re Jewish, so we’d light the candles on Hanukkah, and open presents, somewhat, on Hanukkah, but then on Christmas morning, we would kind of do a big thing for my dad. And then also the presents on Christmas morning, too. So Christmas was always special in our house. And I remember that first holiday that he was gone. He had died in September, and that first holiday was emotional and complicated and painful at times. I think a lot of families struggle around the holidays and also struggle with loss around the holidays, and the person who’s gone feels like they’re still there in certain ways.

Peter is such a wonderful presence on the show and in the movie. I just felt like any opportunities we can have to keep him alive in a way also feels true to me, to experiencing the memories of my first holidays without my dad—he was still very much a presence. So not only it was it important for his presence to be felt, I thought, but also to be able to see him in some of those flashbacks and then to have a really good father-daughter convo.

Given the movie had a fairly condensed time, was there anything you intended to include that just didn’t make the cut?
The movie got green-lit off of a four-line notion, [around] July 22. And we were then going into production on September 14. And so I had two weeks with [the writers] just to break the story, I had a week to write the outline, a week and a half to write the script. We then had two weeks of pre-production. From outline to script, that also when we’re getting over music rights, that’s when Harvey Mason Jr. is working on creating all of our song demos. As the outlining script is coming in, that’s when Mandy Moore started her dance prep. She had the least amount of time for dance prep she’s ever had for this [franchise]—we gave her 12 numbers. And then the actors had four days of rehearsals to go along with camera testing and wardrobe fitting and pre-records before we started shooting. And then we shot for 19 days. And then we had about two weeks to edit it. So the whole process was in total less than four months from start to finish.

I don’t know if there was too much left on the cutting room floor. Other than when we were going from script to shooting, there were things that we found out we couldn’t do. Originally, I had a much longer montage of Zoey doing things to get ready for the holidays. And when we added it up, we would have an entire day of shooting for less than a minute of screen time of montage. So we had to get rid of the montage and just kind of have a couple of funny pops as Zoey is getting ready with Mo and talking about all the things she needs to do for Christmas.

And then we had a bunch of stuff on Christmas morning: Originally we had it that it actually snowed overnight. And so when she went to see Max in the park, and when Mary was at the cemetery, all that stuff was going to be snow all around them. There was going to be the magic that it actually snowed in San Francisco, it wasn’t just in her dream. And we just couldn’t—we had issues with some of our locations because of weather. And we didn’t have the time to get the CGI. So we had to jettison some snow stuff.

I originally had a musical number for John Clarence Stewart. But because John was in the middle of shooting a recurring part on another series, we only had John for three or four days for the movie, and we couldn’t figure out a way to squeeze it all in and get him also to rehearse. There were certain things that kind of fell by the wayside just because of production and scheduling demands. But in terms of like much more story and script, we just didn’t have time for it.

And [general] actor constraints. It was a jigsaw puzzle figuring out how to actually [get everyone]—we had two days with Peter, because he was filming GRACE AND FRANKIE and GREY’S ANATOMY at the same time. There were a lot of different things like that we were constantly moving stuff around just to make sure that people were in it.

With John, there was a beat at the end when Simon gives Zoey the snow globe where it felt like they could be having a moment. Was that intended to revive the triangle between them and Max? Or are you staying away from the triangle if the franchise continues in the future?
I think you’re probably reading too much [into that moment]. It wasn’t my intention to make it love triangle city again; I know how the fans have feelings about that. It was more, for me, about new traditions started and the snow globe had gone away and now there’s a new snow globe and we’re going to start new traditions now. So it was kind of more about that and also maybe on a deeper level, that there’ll always be this connection between Simon and Zoey because of shared loss and their friendship.

But I personally like better the three of them being friends and Max and Simon not being in a competition with each other. I feel like Zoey made her choice. And I think if we go forward, we would just continue to pursue Simon in other ways, not dig back into the romantic triangle of it all, but still knowing that there’s a special connection there between him and Zoey.

Looking to the future, if you had your choice, would you prefer to continue the franchise via film or series?
I mean, first of all, I’m just grateful that we got the opportunity to do this. It was such a crushing blow when it went away and surprised all of us. So the fact that we were canceled in April [and then were able to] come back again, I really credit so much to the fans, and credit so much to Roku’s support that allowed this to happen.

I feel like I would be appreciative if either of those things happen going forward. I mean, I think just the opportunity to do more ZOEY’S, in general, as hard and challenging as it is, it always feels deeply rewarding to us. So I feel like either option would be good. Before I did the movie in the first place, I was like, “Can we do is ZOEY’S movie? What does this movie look like? How would it feel? Would it be different? And how do we break the story?” I really tried to approach the movie as a movie, with a traditional three-act movie structure, and not like just a super-sized episode of the show.

So I have ideas in my head for multiple movies. I think there’s a lot of places we can go, movie-wise. And I think the cast likes the finite amount of time, as intense as it was; it was like a sprint. And everyone got behind that. So I definitely think the idea of more movies appeals to me. But if someone said they wanted to make more episodes of the show, I certainly wouldn’t fight them.

ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY CHRISTMAS, Now Streaming, Roku

RELATED:

• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY CHRISTMAS: Skylar Astin and Austin Winsberg Preview Max’s New Power, Bringing in Holiday Music to the Franchise
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY CHRISTMAS: Zoey Plots a ‘Perfect Mitch Christmas’ in Holiday Film Trailer
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST: Roku Sets December Launch for Holiday Movie, Releases First Look
• NBC Cancels ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST: Andrew Leeds Previews David’s New Gig
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST: Bernadette Peters Sets Season 2 Return
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Post-Mortem: Kapil Talwalkar Breaks Down Tobin’s ‘Extraordinary Reckoning’ Twist
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Boss Teases the Show’s Most Ambitious Act Yet
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Post-Mortem: Austin Winsberg on Shaking Up Zoey’s Foundation in Season 2
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Boss Previews Zoey’s ‘Journey of Recovery’ in Season 2
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Season 2 Premiere: ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Return’ Photos
• NBC Renews ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Post-Mortem: Austin Winsberg on the Rule-Breaking Number and What’s to Come in Season 2
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Boss Teases Max’s New Lease on Life, ‘Authentic’ Mitch Storyline
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST Team on the Love Triangle Reveals, What Comes Next
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST: Jane Levy and Austin Winsberg Tease Jane’s Very Musical ‘Glitch’
• ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST: What You Need to Know About the New NBC Series

Follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @marisaroffman on Twitter for the latest TV news. Connect with other TV fans on GIVE ME MY REMOTE’s official Facebook page.

And be the first to see our exclusive videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases made through links/ads placed on the site.