HOLIDAZED, Hallmark’s new limited series about six different families, each preparing for Christmas on their cul-de-sac in Oak Bay, Oregon, premieres with a double episode on Thursday, November 14.
John C. McGinley is part of the star-studded cast as Chuck Manetti-Hanahan. Chuck has always been competitive about his house’s holiday light display, and recent family issues have made him more determined than ever to outshine the neighbors.
McGinley has been acting in television, film, and theatre for decades. Oliver Stone saw McGinley in an off-Broadway performance of DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA and cast him in PLATOON. McGinley has since appeared in the Stone-directed films WALL STREET, TALK RADIO, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, NIXON, and ANY GIVEN SUNDAY. The actor’s many other feature credits include FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY, POINT BREAK, THE ROCK, SET IT OFF, OFFICE SPACE, IDENTITY, and THE BELKO EXPERIMENT.
On TV, McGinley is probably best known for his nine seasons as Dr. Perry Cox on the medical comedy SCRUBS, and for his three seasons as ex-sheriff Stanley Miller in the horror comedy STAN AGAINST EVIL.
When Hallmark hosts a day of Q&A sessions and festivities for the 2024 summer Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, McGinley sits down for a one-on-one conversation that encompasses not only HOLIDAZED, but STAN AGAINST EVIL, his tour with the USO, his real-life family, and more.
Given that he’s worked regularly in many mediums, does McGinley have a preference for one form over another, or for that matter, one genre over another?
“Nope. It’s all on the page. If it’s not on the page, then you’ve got to show up and pull a rabbit out of your hat, and that’s exhausting. I guess Robin [Williams], rest in peace, could do it, and Jim Carrey can do it. Jonathan Winters could do it. That’s it. It’s exhausting. So, if something’s on the page, and it resonates with me, I want to do that.”
What resonated for McGinley about his HOLIDAZED character, Chuck?
“I would say, a study of a man fighting to be relevant in his house, an aging lion who’s been declawed by virtue of his children becoming adults and having their own kids, and not relying on me anymore, and how we react to that.
“In Chuck’s case, he overreacts to it by trying to willfully micromanage people, and Christmas lights are germane to the story, and being the showiest house, and trying to hang onto some vestige of relevance. Writers can write that.”
According to McGinley, it doesn’t help that Chuck suffers from a not-uncommon social failing. “I don’t think listening is his greatest attribute. I think he hears what he wants to hear.”
McGinley adds that, while he has strong feelings about observing Christmas, he did not have any special interest in Christmas lighting displays prior to HOLIDAZED. However, in real life, “My blind spot – we knocked our house down fourteen years ago, and I built the New York loft that I never had. So, whatever the [tallest single-family building height allowed by] code is – I think it’s twenty-two feet. I got rid of all the walls, so it’s a big open plan.
“The reason that it’s germane to the story was, I put in a gigantic Christmas tree. And that thing is, I don’t know if it’s fifteen or sixteen feet, but my wife Nichole gets up on a ladder, and starts at the top, and she strings – I think last year it was six thousand lights around and around, and she weaves it into the tree, and the rest of us get to hang the ornaments. And it’s my favorite thing.”
Virginia Madsen plays Chuck’s wife Connie. It turns out that not only do McGinley and Madsen know one another, but he actively campaigned for her to be cast.
“Virginia and I did HIGHLANDER II down in Buenos Aires thirty-five years ago,” McGinley explains, “and we were down there for four or five months, with Sean Connery and Chris Lambert. It was a great gig, Russell Mulcahy was the director, and we became desperately good friends. Her dear friend Rusty Schwimmer was down there with us, and we were just a trio. Rusty is one of the great women on the planet. And we were inseparable down there.
“And when you’re a long way from home, you kind of circle the wagons a little tighter, and thirty-five years later, I got to have input on who my [HOLIDAZED] wife was going to be, and I saw her name on the list, and I begged [writer/director/EP] Gina Matthews to find a way to get Virginia to do it.”
Chuck and Connie’s twentysomething daughter Katie, played by Holland Roden, is exasperated with her dad’s version of the holiday spirit. How is it for McGinley playing the father of an adult?
“The [onscreen] children that I’ve had in the past were young. Now, I’ve aged into that, and like I say, these young adults don’t need me that much, and that’s where inadequacy and fear lie, when you’re not relied on anymore, for men. And how we react to that, in this case, as Mr. Over-Compensator, taking up too much space and oxygen. And you’ll see why that’s interesting when things go wrong, the juxtaposition of what I’m talking about, and this guy realizing what really is important is the reason I did the movie.”
McGinley is a father of three. Does he feel any of this in his own life as his children grow older?
“I can feel the clock ticking with my sixteen-year-old Billie Grace. She’s about to get a learner’s permit for a vehicle, and the fourteen-year-old, Kate, her hair is on fire. So, she doesn’t need me as much. She now has a motorized whatever it is, electric bike. So, even just the little region of our area, she doesn’t need me – I’m Daddy the Driver. That was a real big deal, because I could hear everybody chirping in the back seat, telling stories about stuff, because once we’re driving, they forget about me, the service man, and I can lend an ear. And that’s not going to happen pretty soon. So, I can certainly take that leap to [playing someone with] adult children.”
“Had doing a Christmas project been on McGinley’s bucket list?
“I feel like we flirted with Christmas a bunch of times in SCRUBS, and different films had integrated Christmas into them. I don’t think I’ve ever done a Christmas movie, and I don’t necessarily know if it was on my bucket list, as much as I read it when I was on a USO tour of Kosovo and Poland. I was with the men and women who are serving over there, and Germany. And when I read it, it resonated for me immediately. And so, I called them up and I said I would do it, and I’m really glad I did.”
USO tours are known for having singers and comedians entertain the troops, but what does an actor like McGinley do?
“You spend all day with men and women, letting them show you their vehicles, and their weapons, and their protocols. And the cherry on top is, wherever the biggest hall on the base is, there’s a two-hour Q and A, where people get to ask silly questions, and try to stump the celebrity, and everybody has a pretty great time. How much of a jackass can you make this celebrity look like? And I’m like, ‘Bring it on.’”
McGinley says he did not feel he was in personal danger during his USO tour. “We went as far as Warsaw, which was a forward operating base with the war that started in Ukraine, but no, the United States Army said, ‘You’re not going any further east than that.’”
Even so, “On every base, from Krakow to Warsaw, you could feel the heat getting hotter, and the people weren’t playing games. I didn’t serve in the Army, and so, when I get to be with the people who are doing something I didn’t, it feels like a chance to participate in a peripheral and contribute.”
Closer to home, McGinley is doing the genre convention circuit, largely due to the continued love for STAN AGAINST EVIL. Asked about the series’ popularity, McGinley replies, “Oh, God. At Comic-Con, the line’s around the block. It’s really lucrative, and it’s really great.”
McGinley is largely philosophical about his work, but acknowledges with the cancellation of STAN AGAINST EVIL, “That one broke my heart.”
Still, he is sure the show will not come back. “No. That thing had its three years, which is now the new normal, right? I mean, my friend Bill Lawrence, all his shows are three years now. I thought that thing should have gone another year or two.”
McGinley says he does conventions because they are financially remunerative. They also demand a different kind of performance from the actor. “People spend a ton of money at those things for whatever desperately finite amount of time they get to spend with you. And that’s their hard-earned money. I like each interaction to be special. And yes, that’s exhausting. It’s not like putting tiles on a roof in a hundred and twenty degrees, but I want to be present for every single person who shows up, whether it’s a handshake and a signature, or however the meet and greets are structured, I want to be your guy. I want to be that guy you showed up to meet.”
Stipulating that it all has to be on the page, does McGinley ever take into account the intended audience for a project, whether it is aimed at adults or families?
“Doesn’t matter. If it’s for adults and it sucks, I’m not doing it. If it’s for children and it’s offensive, I’m not doing it. It’s so easy. If it doesn’t work on the page, it’s not going to work on the set. And everybody will tell you, they’ll give you more money, they’ll give you more billing, they’ll try to put lipstick on a pig, it’s going to suck unless it’s on the page when you read it the first time.”
Does he look at the project as a whole, or primarily at his part? “I’ve done both. You’ve got to pay the bills.”
McGinley elaborates that sometimes, even if the role he’s offered is appealing, “The rest of it is so horrible that you don’t do it. Even though it’s a seduction.”
What’s McGinley’s favorite project that he’s been in so far?
“I would say that revival we did of GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS on Broadway [2012-2013] with Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale and Richard Schiff and David Harbour, that was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.”
McGinley played Dave Moss, “The guy who organizes the robbery. We agreed to do a hundred [performances], because everybody had something else to do, and then we did an extra twenty-five, and it was the most thrilling thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
In terms of audience response, “It was rock ‘n’ roll. We rocked and rolled on Broadway.”
Does McGinley try to time things so that he can do theatre every so often?
“No. Stuff comes. I don’t have a schedule. I like to be around the kids, and so, I like to be around Max.” Max is McGinley’s twenty-seven-year-old son, who was born with Down’s Syndrome. McGinley is devoted to him. “He’s in great shape. And everything has to be shaped around that.”
Is there a possibility that HOLIDAZED may return next year for a second season?
“One hundred percent,” McGinley smiles, looking happy at the prospect.
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Article:HOLIDAZED : Actor John C. McGinley discusses his new Hallmark holiday series – Exclusive Interview
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