“When I read the script, I got so excited because it was nostalgia for me,” actress and singer Karen David said of the new CBS holiday film When Christmas Was Young, executive produced by Sheryl Crow with an original song written by the singer-songwriter for Karen to sing. “It just took me back to my singer-songwriter days and what that was like even starting out and doing the slog and fighting the good fight of trying to go through those struggles that you do when you're first starting out. It just brought me back to that place. And I remember it so well as if it was yesterday. I just felt this connection so deeply with Melody, and I knew it was something I had to do.”
(Dean Buscher/CBS)
Karen David (Galavant) plays Melody, a singer-songwriter who gave up on her dreams, but is brought back into the business when a music manager seeks out a Christmas song she wrote years ago for one of his clients. “I've always played the musician, I've never really played the music-business side of things,” Tyler Hilton said of his role as Luke during a press conference to promote the film. “I've been doing music professionally since I was 15 and been around all kinds of record people in all different phases of the industry. So it was kind of fun to embody a lot of the people I think I've worked with and also to see the compassion on that side of it too, the kind of pressure they're under and what the stakes are for them. I really liked it; it was fun.”
When Christmas Was Young was written by Robert Tate Miller, who is no stranger to writing holiday films with credits that include Three Days and Hope at Christmas. “I've written a number of Christmas movies, and I wanted this one to be something that really hadn't been done before,” the screenwriter explained. “I was on set for a good bit of it. It was just a writer's dream, being there, to see it all come to life.” With songwriting, music often comes before the lyrics. In the case of When Christmas Was Young, it was a title that inspired the film, which in turn inspired the song. “The title came to me first, to be honest. I thought I’ve got to build a story around this title. And then I thought, well, let's make it a song title. It's kind of unique that a Christmas movie is centered around a song, an original song. And so that appealed to me. It was different than anything I'd ever done. The story came quickly, although it was a couple of years of revisions and notes. I believed in it from the beginning and knew it was going to go all the way.”
“Hats off to Sheryl Crow,” gushed Karen David about the song, which is now available on all major music streaming services. “It's such a dream to have someone like her crafting a song for your character. I remember when Tom Mazza, our producer, sent the track over, I was in London, and I was on a busy commuter train. And everyone was all like 6:00 rush hour, and they're all grouchy and grumpy, and there I was just beaming, thinking, oh, my God, I'm hearing Sheryl Crow singing this demo on a packed commuter train in London. It was a dream come true from there. We knew that we wanted to do a record and a single, and my husband, who's a Grammy-nominated music producer, I kind of said to him, ‘Do you have some time on your hands maybe to produce this album?’” Karen’s husband Carl Ryden not only produced the song, but it ended up being the first song recorded in their newly furnished home recording studio.
(Dean Buscher/CBS)
While reminiscing about the fun they had on set, Karen and Tyler brought up the pie scene. “If you guys could see the blooper reel of how many times… there's a reason why I'm wearing that apron,” Karen laughed. “They got this fancy whipped cream canister for me, and I was like, oh, this is going to be great,” Tyler added. “Every take I did, it exploded all over her blouse. So there was white whipped cream everywhere, we’d have to reset. It happened so many times, I felt horrible.” Karen recalled that she wasn’t the only whipped cream target. “It went on you first, and then the whole camera crew, and then it went onto my blouse. And they were like, ‘Oh, dear,’ so then the apron went on, and we were trying not to laugh.” The pie scene, as they called it, paid its own dividends. “We also ate a lot of pie in the movie,” Tyler recalled, “So maybe that's why we were so excited because we were on a sugar high the whole time. Lots of pie in the movie.”
Have some pie ready when you and your loved ones gather together to enjoy When Christmas Was Young, premiering tonight at 8:30 ET/8PT and streaming live and on-demand on Paramount+.