Gerard Butler on his first-ever Christmas movie role and holiday message to Kiwis

Gerard Butler stars as St Nick in The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland. Photo / Nick Wall

Think of Scottish actor Gerard Butler and you probably think of the gruff action star of films like 300 and the Has Fallen franchise.

Or maybe you fell in love with him as Gerry, the loveable bad boy and singer from P.S. I Love You.

But speaking to the Herald from Los Angeles, Butler admits his latest role is something even he didn’t see coming, as he gives an adeptly jolly “Hello to New Zealand”.

He’s set to voice St Nick in Peter Baynton’s upcoming animated film The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, based on the bestselling children’s book of the same name by Carys Bexington.

It’s his first-ever Christmas movie – something he never saw himself doing.

“I hadn’t even considered it,” the 55-year-old tells the Herald.

“It just so happened that this script showed up and I started flicking the pages and went, ‘Wait, what? This is kind of cool’.”

A still from The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland. Photo / NBC Universal

The original book combines two classic stories into one – Clement Clarke Moore’s poem ’Twas the Night Before Christmas and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

The character of St Nick isn’t your typical Santa in a jolly red suit – he’s absentminded, clumsy, partial to an oat milk latte and perpetually behind schedule, constantly testing the patience of his long-suffering team of reindeer.

“From the second I read the script, I thought I can’t let this one go. I just felt myself in it,” the actor says.

Gerard Butler voices St Nick alongside Simone Ashley as Alice and Emilia Clarke as the Queen of Hearts. Photo / Nick Wall

“There’s all these parts of me that people don’t really get to see – the fun, the silly, the buffoonery. He felt kind of like a big kid and he had all those qualities. And I also got the humour – I could see it where it was written, and also where I thought I could take it.

“I went, ‘I’m in. I want to tell this story. I want to be Santa’.”

The story is told through beautifully drawn animation, catchy musical numbers and dialogue entirely made up of rhyming couplets. Alongside Butler, Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley stars as Alice and Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke as the evil Queen of Hearts, whose back story unfolds throughout the film.

It turns out that all she wanted for Christmas as a child was a pet Bandersnatch, a fantasy creature from Carroll’s original book – but her letter to St Nick got lost in the mail. Now, she hates Christmas and everything associated with it.

A still from The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland. Photo / NBC Universal

Anyone watching will relate to that feeling of longing for a specific Christmas present as a child – so what was Butler’s Bandersnatch?

“Maybe I was being insensitive, but I wanted a Formula One car before I understood that maybe we actually had no money as a family and a Formula One car might not be coming my way,” he recalls with a smile.

The following year, a young Butler got a Scalextrics set instead.

“I went in a huff for a while and pretended it wasn’t good enough. But really, I loved it,” he admits. “I used that until it broke [around] my last birthday, maybe a year ago.”

And while he says he’s “got out a bit of the Christmas feel” as an adult, the actor fondly recalls another festive tradition – watching It’s a Wonderful Life and The Wizard of Oz at Christmastime as a child. The latter isn’t technically a Christmas movie, but often airs during the festive season.

“I learned so much from that movie. It is amazing what you can take out of movies when you’re a kid. And Christmas was the time that the whole family – it was a big family – we’d all get together and watch The Wizard of Oz,” he reminisces.

Gerard Butler in the recording booth for his upcoming film The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland. Photo / Nick Wall

Now, Butler hopes to have made a film that will join the ranks of those classic Christmas movies.

“This is one that I would watch, you could watch with kids, the whole family. It’s a very clever script and I think it works on all those levels.

“There’s just so many funny modern references – you know, Santa using a GPS to get around the world, drinking oat lattes. There’s so many asides about working conditions and taxes,” he chuckles.

“It’s really funny, I’ve sat watching it with adults and kids alike and at times I was like, the adults are getting even more out of this than the kids.

“I do think it’s hard to get that movie that blends both – where kids can enjoy it and the adults can enjoy it. Sometimes they’re enjoying the same moment, sometimes they’re enjoying completely different moments.”

A still from The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland. Photo / NBC Universal

But behind the jokes, there’s a deeper message, he says.

“[It‘s] everybody coming together in Santa’s big family. He’s friends with them all. Then they become friends with everybody else in Wonderland. It’s kind of cool to see Santa and Prancer having words with the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit and the March Hare and Alice.

“The imagination is great, it really takes you to another place.”

He hopes Kiwi viewers experience a sense of being transported to that place, though we don’t get the Northern Hemisphere white Christmas usually portrayed on screen.

“I often miss the snow at Christmas too,” Butler reflects.

“I spend sometimes Christmas in LA and it’s very un-Christmassy here too. But I try to get back to Scotland, though nowadays it’s rarely snowy there as well – but the movie is about so much more than that.

“It is about, in all your imperfections, you try to do your best and you try to be kind. It’s that simple,” he says, pointing out that St Nick is just about “the most imperfect Santa that you could get”.

“And it’s not just that being kind is good, you know – it comes back to you. It’s almost about karma. At the end, just by her [The Queen of Hearts] being kind, it doesn’t even matter anymore what Christmas present she gets, because she just feels better about herself, and suddenly her world starts to brighten up and lighten up.

“So I think there’s a lot of small, subtle messages, and then the bigger messages about kindness and love and everybody coming together at Christmas.”

The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland will be available to watch in New Zealand on Neon and Sky Go from December 1 and will air on Sky Movies Family on December 24.

Bethany Reitsma is an Auckland-based journalist covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2019. She specialises in telling Kiwis’ real-life stories, money-saving hacks and anything even remotely related to coffee.