Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey tells the story of an inventor who loses his creation but reconnects with his family. The nearly all-black cast includes greats like Forest Whitaker and Anika Noni Rose as of the central family, but there are a few incredible baddies in the mix too.
Keegan-Michael Key plays Gustafson, the traitor who makes off with Jeronicus’ special robot, and Ricky Martin plays his right hand man Don Juan Diego. The actors spoke to Screen Rant about what they brought to their roles and how much fun they had working on the film.
Keegan, your musical number is brilliant. How much fun was that, and how much work was that?
Keegan-Michael Key: First of all, it was a blast. It's about a month to two months of work with the choreography, but it was really satisfying. And the thing is that, in movies, you don't often get to practice. If you're going to do prep, you've got to do all of it before you get into the shooting. And here, we got to do prep while they were shooting and while they were doing pre-production, and it was great. It was really great.
I had the opportunity to go, "Okay, I think I really nailed that step," and I had a month before that to learn the song. So once we all got in our finery and our costumes, and got on the set, it took us about four days to shoot. I haven't had that much fun [before; I felt so present when I was doing it, and it was really a lot of fun. I mean, you lose three pounds every day. Because there's no better time to dance than when you're wearing six layers of wool. So, it was really fun.
Ricky, amazing job. Don Juan Diego is mighty full of himself, and I love the character. What inspired his personality and his voice?
Ricky Martin: So, for a minute, we were deciphering if he was Castilian or if he was Colombian. You know how it goes with Spanish, and we play a lot with that. But at the end of the day, I just had David, our director, poking me and allowing me to be; just pushing me to fly as much as I could with it.
I was lucky enough to work and record my parts with Keegan already recorded, so I was able to see his acting in order for me to bring it up to the next level. But it was a lot of fun. A lot of work; I'm not gonna say it was easy. It was many months, on and off, to take it to where it's at. But I'm very pleased. I watch it, and I want to watch it again. My kids are loving it, my mother is loving it, everybody is. It's super cool, man.
Keegan, what did you want to bring to your character that wasn't necessarily on the page?
Keegan-Michael Key: The biggest thing for me was about there being some pathos. I wanted people to see him, and I talked to David, the director, quite a bit during the writing the final stages of the writing process. I wanted to bring this to him, and I'm really inspired by Michael B. Jordan's performance as Killmonger in Black Panther, because he's a three-dimensional character. And I wanted to make Gustafson as three-dimensional as possible, so that at any point in the film, you the viewer would understand what his motivations were and where he was coming from.
That's what I was trying to bring, and I tried to bring it to fruition as best I could at the very end of the movie. You saw at the very end of movie, that sense of him being a tortured soul who in some way, shape or form knew he was stuck. And it's not until the end - he feels a lot of regret, but Jeronicus also frees him a little bit by going, "Listen, you made a mistake. I would have been there for you the whole time," you know?
So, I wanted to bring that pathos to it, more than just having him be a one-dimensional villain.
Ricky, you're the last person I assume would be the devil on somebody's shoulder, but that's exactly what Don Juan is. Can you talk to me about who the real villain is, and why he wants to convince Gustafson to go in this direction of indefinitely borrowing plans?
Ricky Martin: Who is going to do millions of Don Juans? I am unique. I am the only one, and I will do whatever it takes to stay unique.
Listen, I just went in there, and it's so beautifully written, to be honest. You just hop on that wave, and it's all right there. If all of a sudden something extra comes that David likes, he adds it. But I was very comfortable with what I was seeing and the that I was getting for everyone around me.
To be honest, I have done this before, but not in this manner. And I am super humbled and appreciative of everything that I experienced in this process.
This is an instinct classic. What do you think separates this Christmas tale from others that we've seen before?
Keegan-Michael Key: I would say it's definitely the magic; this magical aspect of this tale and the fact that it's almost like a Victorian science fiction Christmas movie. It's almost like if Charles Dickens had a laser gun; it has that kind of [feeling] - that I've not seen. I mean, you see Christmas magic in movies, but this has literal magic in it. And I think that's one of the things that sets it apart.
