A new film from two locals, “How to Ruin the Holidays,” is creating space for actors and stories we don’t usually get to see on a big screen.
Directed by Arlen Konopaki, “How to Ruin the Holidays” was written by Atlanta resident Kevin Gillese, and stars Amber Nash, known for her work as Pam Poovey on the animated series “Archer.” The movie stars Nash as Michelle, a struggling comedian who reluctantly comes home to Atlanta for the holidays, where she must make a difficult decision regarding care for her brother, who has special needs. The movie also stars Colin Mochrie, Kate Lambert, and Aisha Tyler.
Gillese’s relationship with his brother Mark inspired him to write the film.
“When I was the best man at his wedding a few years ago, I told the crowd ‘Mark has taught me that our differences make us stronger, not weaker, no matter what mainstream culture would have us believe,’” Gillese wrote on a Kickstarter campaign page for the film. “And I think that’s a message that still needs to be heard today.”
The movie stars Luke Davis as Mark, the character based on Gillese’s brother. Gillese and Nash, who are married, met Davis while working on the 2018 short film “That Was Awesome!” That short was also written by Gillese and directed by Konopaki.
In addition to bringing more visibility to stories about individuals with special needs, it was important to both Nash and Gillese that the movie felt like an Atlanta movie, rather than just a film made in Atlanta. The film was produced in partnership with Dad’s Garage Theatre, where both Nash and Gillese honed their comedy chops. Nash previously served as the education director for Dad’s Garage, where Gillese served as the artistic director.
“One of the themes of the movie is saying, you know the way you think it’s supposed to go? That isn’t how it has to go,” Gillese said. I think that that is true of this idea of – you know, the big projects come from outside and they make their stuff [in Atlanta], but it’s not from here. And that’s just how it has to go. The spirit of our movie, and the making of it, was kind of saying, well that’s not always how it has to be.”
“How to Ruin the Holidays” had its Atlanta premiere at the Plaza Theatre on Nov. 15, and is playing again Nov. 24-30 at the Plaza. Rough Draft Atantla spoke to Nash and Gillese about the film before the Nov. 15 screening. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
I know the premiere of “How to Ruin the Holidays” is tonight. How are you feeling headed to the Plaza Theatre tonight?
Kevin Gillese: I’m super excited. It’s been a long road of many years to get to this point, and to be premiering it here in Atlanta, the city where we made the movie and the setting for the film, it’s really a special thing.
Amber Nash: It’s so wonderful to have the opportunity to watch it with an audience and see what people are responding to. Because, you know, Kevin and I come from theater, which is so immediate, and filmmaking is so not that. [Laughs] This is kind of our first step into filmmaking, and so to be able to have a theater response is something that we’re very used to and crave. So it’s really nice to be in a theater with people and hearing how they react to the movie.
Yeah, especially with comedies. It’s nice to be able to laugh together. Kevin, you mentioned that this has been a long road. Can you talk about how this idea came to you and the writing process?
Gillese: The same team was working on a short film called “That Was Awesome!” And that’s where we met Luke Davis. He’s an incredible actor. But really, that experience unlocked in my mind the possibility that I could write something about my relationship with my younger brother, because I now had an actor that could actually portray that role. I guess I’ve always wanted to, on some level, express a different perspective on what these kinds of relationships and characters look like – which is to say, comedic and silly and trying to try to make each other laugh.
Amber, how did you end up coming on board?
Nash: Well, Kevin, and I are married, so he had to put me in the movie. [Laughs] I’ve been really lucky that since we’ve all been working together – Arlen, who directed the film, is a longtime partner of Kevin’s in comedy, and luckily, Arlen and I over the years have become really good friends. In the beginning, when Kevin and I first started working together and were in a relationship, I would always say, “I can never be Arlen.” And that is still true! So it’s really wonderful that they have their very distinct working relationship, and Kevin and I have ours, and now Arlen and I have ours too. We got to start working together for the very first time – I mean, we’d done improv together, even before Kevin and I were married, all of us – but we worked together for the first time on “Hart of America,” which was a web series we did in 2015? Kevin, do you even know what year it was? We don’t know.
Gillese: I truly don’t. [According to IMDB, “Hart of America” came out in 2016].
Nash: We just kept going, and so when Kevin wrote this film, luckily it was written for me from the very beginning. I was so excited and terrified, honestly, to be the lead in this film. But it definitely was easier knowing that it was not just written for me, but written for me by my husband of almost 10 years. So it was like, I really knew he was going to get the voice right.
I’m glad you brought up y’all’s working relationship. I did know you were married, and it’s funny you say you could never be Arlen. How do your personal and working relationships go together? How does that work for you guys?
Nash: In the beginning, it was all improv, because the improv theater that I work at and the one that Kevin was the boss of is how we actually met. So we had known each other as professionals first, and then when we started working together, as we were in a relationship, it was hard at first – figuring out those boundaries and being in a relationship, but also communicating as artists and professionals. So there were definitely some bumps in the road. We did a tour to Europe, where we were teaching and performing, and I think we got a lot of that stuff figured out on that tour. But it’s constantly figuring it out. You know, I think that to be in a relationship and to also work together is not something that all couples would ever even attempt to do. But I find it to be extremely gratifying. Being on set and having Kevin there, and having so many people that I was close with, really made it easier for me to do my job, because it was the first time I’d ever done anything like that before. So having that closeness is really comforting. While it can be difficult, it can also be so rewarding.
That makes a lot of sense. Going to Europe – teaching, performing and also traveling together. I feel like that’s a whole other animal.
Nash: Yeah, we really threw ourselves in the deep end.
I’d like to talk about the casting process. You mentioned Luke, and Colin Mochrie is also in this – I was a huge “Whose Line is it Anyway?” kid when I was younger. Can you talk about getting the group together?
Gillese: The script was initially written with the three leads in mind; Amber, Colin and Luke. So, you know … if Amber read it and was like, “I don’t want to do this,” or if Colin was like, “I don’t want to do this,” or if Luke was like, “I’m quitting acting,” or whatever the case may be – that would have been the end of it. But because we started from that core, once we got the ball up and running, we started to reach out through our personal networks to try to ask favors from friends that we’d worked with over the years. That’s where Henry [Zebrowski], and Aisha [Tyler], and Ronnie [Chieng] and Kate [Lambert] all came in.
There are a lot of movies that are filmed in Atlanta, but taking place in Atlanta is a bit rarer. Can you talk about the process of trying to make this film feel like a Georgia movie rather than something that was just filmed here?
Nash: One of the things that I think is really funny about the film is that we kind of skewer L.A. a little bit, because Atlanta is a huge, obviously, production hub now, and a lot of people that aren’t in Georgia don’t know that – particularly people in L.A. I feel like, you know, if you’re in the arts, you from a very young age – no matter where you’re at in the world – get the message that you have to be in L.A. or New York in order to make a go of it. We’ve definitely not done that, and it hasn’t always been easy. So I feel like that’s one of the fun parts about it, is that we really get to give L.A. a hard time. Actually, we were talking about this because we’ve had screenings in other cities, and they’ve all be fun, and everybody’s really laughed at some of the jokes about L.A. Well, we’re going to L.A. at the end of this week, and we’re like, “Ugh! How will the L.A. audiences take it?”
Do you think they’re going to be good at poking fun at themselves?
Nash: I hope so! [Laughs].
You both have history with Dad’s Garage, and they came into work on this movie. Can you talk about that creative partnership?
Gillese: Well, it was really this project that I used as a catalyst to step away from my leadership role at Dad’s Garage. I had been the artistic director there for 10 years, and we were just looking for that next challenge, that next chapter. When this project started to come together, I realized that I couldn’t really do both. So I stepped down from the AD role, just in time to slip the uppercut of the pandemic, which also ended up delaying the timeline of creating this project, of course. But the point is that, from that moment, I stepped away with the intention of saying – well, let me make this a Dad’s Garage project, and let’s see if this can be a new chapter for nonprofit comedy arts organizations, and see, in addition to our scripted and our improv shows, can we be the kind of place that makes indie movies once in a while as well? It’s been really wonderful to get to see this film as an extension of all the work that I had done at Dad’s.
Nash: One of the fun things that was happening during the time that we were shooting the film is that Christmastime is a very busy time at all theaters. It was our base camp, they were rehearsing and then eventually doing the Christmas show at Dad’s, which is a huge undertaking. And there was catering, which is never what happens at the theater, so it was just a crazy time at the theater, which was really fun because we got to share this thing that was our first time doing it with the theater also. It was nuts, but it was really, really fun. Like the holidays are!