Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “Meet Me Next Christmas,” now streaming on Netflix.
Christina Millian and Devale Ellis knew their passionate kiss in Netflix’s “Meet Me Next Christmas” had to be perfect.
“One of the producers was just like, ‘Listen, man, no pressure at all. Movies are made right here at this moment, so don’t mess this up. But there’s no pressure. But let’s elevate the film by making a great kiss. Okay, go out there, kids,’” Ellis tells Variety of the pressure to nail that pivotal moment.
So how did they overcome the nerves and deliver? “We got threatened,” Ellis jokes. Acknowledging that the logistics of the shot required for an intense make-out, Ellis adds, “[Director Rusty Cundieff] let us know, like, ‘It’s gonna be long, because we gotta go around you guys three times as the world melts around you.’ And then Christina had, like, garlic knots that day.”
“Onions, garlic, sausage… I was like, ‘Ready?’” Milian quips with a laugh.
In the film, Ellis’ concierge Teddy helps Layla (Milian) on her journey to land tickets to Pentatonix’s sold-out Christmas show. Layla hopes to reunite with her dream guy James (Kofi Siriboe) at the show, but instead finds herself falling for Teddy as they bound through the city on the hunt for tickets.
If the kiss didn’t already put enough pressure on his shoulders, Ellis was also determined to make sure this film lives up to Milian’s other Netflix rom-coms, 2019’s “Falling in Love” and 2021’s “Resort to Love.” “I felt like it was going to be a classic number one, because Christina’s been putting out classics the last couple years,” Ellis says. “So when I first got cast, I was excited but nervous because I was just like, we got to do it right.”
“Classic number one” is right. “Meet Me Next Christmas” garnered 18.1 million streams on Netflix within its first week, debuting as the most-watched title on the platform from Nov. 4 through 10. “We’re just happy that naturally people gravitated to this time of year, taking in Christmas right now, feeling that joy,” Milian says.
