Italian
A red knit scarf. That’s all Dustin Milligan’s sexy snowman ‘Jack’ is wearing when audiences first meet him in Netflix’s latest Christmas film “Hot Frosty.”
“I was obviously very exposed during all of that, but in a way, doing what I could to just shed all of my own inhibitions and be liberated as Jack would have been in that moment, Milligan tells Variety of stripping down. “It was liberating for me!”
In a fantastical plot that’s just off-the-rails enough to work, “Hot Frosty” follows Lacey Chabert’s Kathy, a widow and paragon of her local community, as she unwittingly brings a snow sculpture (with chiseled abs) to life with the help of that red scarf and a little Christmas magic.
“It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the characters within the movie are in on the joke in a way,” Chabert says of the film as she recalls an early scene when the town’s doctor (Katy Mixon) accepts the reality of an anthropomorphized snowman with little questioning. “When I opened the script, it was only a couple pages in where I realized, ‘Oh, wait a second, this movie has a lot of heart, and it’s really romantic and it’s really funny.’”
Popular on Variety “One of the strengths is that it very much presents as though it’s going to be one thing, and then it tricks you,” Milligan adds. “It’s a Christmas trick, and it gives you the best gift of all, which is a sense of joy.”
Dustin Milligan in “Hot Frosty” Courtesy of Netflix Jack’s unbridled happiness and wide-eyed sense of wonder leads Kathy, who’s thrown herself into her work after the death of her beloved husband, to prioritize her own happiness again. To channel Jack’s endearing bewilderment, “Schitt’s Creek” alum Milligan says he drew inspiration from famous film characters thrust into an unfamiliar world: Will Ferrell in “Elf,” Daryl Hannah in “Splash,” Jennifer Garner in “13 Going on 30” and Tom Hanks in “Big,” to name a few.
And of course, Chabert brought her own wealth of holiday knowledge to the project: she’s starred in over a dozen Christmas movies for Hallmark, leading the internet to deem her the “Queen of Christmas.”
“I love a feel-good movie. That’s the kind of movie I like to watch personally, and Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday. I’m so happy that I found myself in this position where I get to make all of these Christmas movies, because I enjoy them so much, and they mean so much to me,” Chabert says. “It brings up good memories of my childhood. I have an 8-year-old daughter. Getting to create new memories by passing along these traditions is really meaningful.”
While Chabert has been a Hallmark darling for years, a recent age discrimination lawsuit filed by casting director Penny Perry alleges that the actor’s future with the channel may be in jeopardy. “Lacey’s getting older and we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older,” the suit claims Hallmark executive VP of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly said.
Lacey Chabert in “Hot Frosty” Netflix “I think it’s important that we have the opportunity to tell all of our stories through every phase of life,” Chabert says of ageism in the industry. “I have so much that I hope to share with my audience. Now I’m a mother, and it’s the experience of raising a daughter. It’s so important to me to portray characters that she, as a younger generation, can also look up to and learn from. And with everything I do, I try to put as much of my authentic heart into it as I can.”
“Hot Frosty,” her first collaboration with Netflix, also includes a nod to one of her earliest and best-known film roles: “Mean Girls.” When Kathy first brings Jack to her home, she cues up Lindsay Lohan’s 2023 Netflix holiday film “Falling for Christmas” and quips, “That’s so funny. That looks just like a girl I went to high school with.”
“Oh, I thought it was so much fun,” Chabert says of reading that line in the script. “I was totally on board. I love Lindsay. We’ve known each other since we were kids, and having shared the experience of ‘Mean Girls’ together was so special. And now that our paths are crossing again in this way, I’m just delighted.”
