Alison Brie & Mary Steenburgen Interview: Happiest Season
Happiest Season, available now through Hulu, is a holiday film meant to bring families together by centering a cast of various quirky but lovable characters. When Abby (Kristen Stewart) visits her girlfriend Harper’s (Mackenzie Davis) parents for Christmas, she soon learns how little they really know about their daughter.
Mary Steenburgen plays Harper’s mother Tipper, while Alison Brie costars as her sister Sloane. The two celebrated actresses are part of a large ensemble cast that finds its way to acceptance by the end of the film, and they spoke to Screen Rant about their characters’ relationships to Harper and reactions to her romance.
Mary, your characters are pretty oblivious to Harper's relationship. How much of that is attributed to being naive, and do you think there's a willful ignorance there?
Mary Steenburgen: I do think there's a little bit of willing - that's a great way to put it, willful ignorance. I asked myself that a lot.
But I also think that for many years, Tipper has had this desire for some sort of perfection in her family and put a lot of pressure on everybody as a result of that. And the perfect picture right now includes my husband being mayor and me being first lady. So, the idea of seeing that my daughter is gay is so far away from my ability as a person in this moment in time. But as we find out, she's not completely unable to see her daughter for who she is.
Alison, Sloane is fairly tightly wound. How does that contrast with her sister, and how have her parents contributed to that part of her personality?
Alison Brie: I think that their parents have contributed a lot to that part of their personality. You really get the sense, between my character and Mackenzie's character, that they have spent their entire lives competing for their parents' love and affection and approval. Luckily, the youngest sister, played by Mary Holland, is not concerned. They've written her off, she's not concerned about that at all, and she turned out great.
I think the whole movie is about everybody seeking approval from others, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that idea of caring a lot about what other people think. Especially your parents, people who have withholding parents - I do not, I'm very lucky to say. But certainly, I think that Harper and Sloane have a tendency to bring out the worst in each other; certainly the most competitive sides to each other. And because Harper is in much better favor with their parents, I think that really irks Sloane and really hurts her feelings.
I don't think she's a total villain; I actually think it really hurts her that she wants to be part of the family and she wants them to be proud of her. To be sort of sidelined because she's no longer a powerful attorney and now she makes gift baskets is very hurtful to her. So, the moment that she can have something on her sister, she's very excited just by the prospect of getting ahead with their parents.
In playing this character, it was really important for me personally to establish Sloane as not being homophobic in any way. I think she just wants to be able to one-up her sister.
Mary Steenburgen: Oh, we get that. We get that.
Mary, you've starred so many classics, including one of the best dramedies of all time: Parenthood. In what ways can this be seen as an extension of that form?
Mary Steenburgen: Both films are about both the hilarity and the frailty and the heartbreak of loving other people and being related to them, and being very different from them, and trying to carve out your own identity; parents not understanding children and vice versa. And I think they both will live - I know Parenthood has lived so long - in people's hearts, because there is a truth at the bottom. And I think that's true of this movie, as well.