Video:Seth Gordon and Alex Wurman Interviews - Four Christmases

Transcript:Seth Gordon and Alex Wurman Interviews - Four Christmases

Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the World Premiere of Four Christmases.

Four Christmases Director Seth Gordon

Coming from the world of documentary films, was it easier for you to allow your cast to improv because you're so used to changing things up?

Seth Gordon: "I think that my background in documentary did help when it comes to ad-libbing and some of the riffing that happened because you never know how it's going to go in a documentary at all. But in this film, there was a little bit of flexibility in how we would do certain things or block it, or how certain lines would be said. So I think it helped a lot to be used to a situation where you're just watching life and you never know which way it was going to go. This time, that did help."

Could you have cast two stars that are any more different in height than you did?

Seth Gordon: "I know. They selected each other before I was on this, and they could hardly be more different. But I love how they did the poster. Instead of shying away from the fact that they're so different, just own it and make it part of the thing. So I really liked that."

How many of these experiences in the film are actually from your family?

Seth Gordon: "Three."

And you're not going to say which three.

Seth Gordon: "I'm not going to say which ones."

You still have to visit your family at holidays. So what was the appeal of doing a holiday comedy?

Seth Gordon: "Oh, I just think everybody can relate to these themes. I think Christmas is just an especially important topic for me. Just growing up it was something I always really cared about and so I wanted to be a part of this film."

Composer Alex Wurman

So tell me about working on this and mixing the classics with new stuff.

Alex Wurman: "Right. I really enjoyed that aspect of it because growing up with the classics was something that created this massive picture in my mind about what is the musical world. And so the contemporary stuff, I do a lot of indie films and some big movies, and the contemporary stuff is fun to mix in. You just have to choose when. It's a matter of deciding this is a moment when you want to bring in that gravity or that depth that some of the classics have, and this is now here's a new moment where it just feels more… That might feel old-fashioned in one scene but not in the next, so you try flipping things back and forth and try to stay open."

And you also used a 90 piece orchestra for this?

Alex Wurman: "Yeah, we used a big orchestra. It's fun. I wanted to hit that big title card with White Christmas and really give it a zinger."

More on Four Christmases:

Reese Witherspoon Article on Four Christmases and the Holidays

Four Christmases Photos

Four Christmases Poster, Trailers, and Credits

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