- Interviews
Will Kemp on “A Christmas Waltz”
With the holiday season kicking off, so are the first sighting of Christmas movies. The Hallmark Channel, which first began showing Christmas films in 2000, has now produced more than 135 of them and their latest, A Christmas Waltz, stars Lacey Chabert (Party of Five, Mean Girls) as a woman who signs herself and her fiancé up for dance lessons. When the engagement is called off, she reluctantly decides to take the dance classes anyway under the guidance of the instructor (Will Kemp). Romance predictably ensues. Kemp isn’t just acting as a dance teacher: he trained at the Royal Ballet and danced the lead role in Matthew Bourne’s acclaimed production of Swan Lake.
Actors sometimes have to learn a new skill for a role. For It is very interesting because there is this slight misconception that just because people think you can dance, you can do any kind of dancing. I actually had to learn how to ballroom dance because that was a specific skillset I didn’t have going into this. It definitely helped that I have had classical ballet training and was a professional dancer, but I too was taking a step outside my comfort zone.
Who taught you these new moves?
We worked with this fantastic choreographer Jean-Marc Genereux, who is on the French version of As you mentioned your dance history, in this film you play a dance instructor so how good of a teacher would you be?
I enjoy choreography and as part of my training at the Royal Ballet School, I had to choreograph on the Royal Ballet’s summer schools. So, I do have some experience and I really enjoyed working with children. Having said that, it is also something that frightens me. Whenever you are made to teach whatever it is you do, you are suddenly put on the spot. Do I really know what I am doing? You begin to put this pressure on yourself. What is the worthy knowledge that I have gained that I can impart? The key is to be honest. As a parent, you know that you don’t always have the answers and that is the beauty of it. When you choreograph a dance, it is very specific to the pupil, the person who is dancing. I am very good at being able to adapt to the person who is in front of me. That is what Roman is good at in this film.
Snow is an essential part of the atmosphere of Christmas, but you shot this in Vancouver in the summer.
For anyone who has ever been a part of these Christmas movies, and there are many, they start shooting in Vancouver in June. You will see all these actors wearing shorts, t-shirts and flip flops because the weather is boiling. But you know you will soon be on set, wearing all these heavy clothes pretending it’s Christmas, dripping in sweat. It was getting colder when we shot but we got some very surprising looks on the streets we shot. We had to shovel in snow and had snow machines. There were a few bars still open and socially distancing and you would see these guys carrying cans of lager being very perplexed when they saw us shooting in the snow.
What’s it like shooting a movie during a pandemic?
I was thrilled to get back to work and felt very lucky. This was my third job with Lacey but it did take some getting used to all the protocols. We wore gloves and masks through all the rehearsals, even the dance rehearsals, where I was puffing and trying to catch my breath. We had to clean hands constantly on set. It highlighted for me how much of a physical actor I am. I am messy on set. I do voice exercises, I spit, but I couldn’t do that anymore. We were under strict protocols. It highlighted to me how noisy I am and how much I take that for granted. You couldn’t take off the masks until the camera started to roll. The first take was like a rehearsal.