VINCE Vaughn talks about the appeal of Fred Claus, his favourite Christmas films and why he asked for the film to be set in Chicago rather than New York.

He also discusses the importance of keeping the bar low when it comes to Christmas shopping, being recruited for the Old Vic stage in London and why he enjoys working with director David Dobkin (of Wedding Crashers and Clay Pigeons fame) so much…

What was your best and worst Christmas?
Vince Vaughn: I always liked Christmas. My father was a toy salesman. I think when you’re a kid opening toys is always fun but boy, I hated opening clothes. You get socks and that’s not any fun, or a T-shirt. I know I need a T-shirt, but really? Santa wanted to wrap and put that for me under the tree? That’s great. So, as you get older it’s not that fun because all you really get is clothes. Now I’m an uncle, so I have a nephew and some nieces, and it’s fun again. There’s nothing quite like little kids getting excited and opening toys.

For me, that’s the joy and the fun of the whole thing. I remember as a kid, I think my best Christmas was the year I got the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle – where you pull the cord and the bike would go… we’d drive my Mum crazy because we’d be jumping the kitchen table. She’d get so mad at me. But that was so much fun because I loved Evel Knievel, I thought he was so cool. He was like a superhero but he was a real guy. Then when I was about seven I got a couple of handguns and that was… I’m kidding, I’m joking, a little humour.

What are your favourite Christmas films?
Vince Vaughn: I really love these stop action films, Heat and Snow Miser, or Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Heat and Snow Miser would sing about Mother Nature. I don’t think they’re quite as popular over here. And I also liked Scrooge and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life. My friend, Peter Billingsley, was in A Christmas Story, which I like.

But here’s how it worked in the old days – TV Guide was the Bible and you had to figure out when they were on. You couldn’t miss them. These specials were everything and you really wanted to get your hands on them. There was no VCR, there was no TiVo, you either caught the thing or that was it, you had a whole year to wait. Now you can go buy some of them on DVD and have them, which is great. But as a kid, because if you didn’t catch them you missed them, it was a bigger deal.

Did you have to keep Fred Claus clean, with an eye on this being a family film? Or was there ever a temptation to spice things up a little?
Vince Vaughn: We really knew what the tone of the film would be, so there was never a temptation that way. For me, the biggest calling other than David [Dobkin, the director], who I’ve worked with before, was the different look at the naughty versus nice list. That concept. That’s something that you think about, especially at this time of year, there’s kids who don’t have someone to think about them or give them words of encouragement.

To me, the greatest part of the film is the third act and the emotion of it. That sentiment is something I really love and that’s kind of the quintessential Christmas feeling that you want from these films. Even the look of our characters watching children open presents with parents, that simple moment of a child who’s happy and the coming together of parents. To me, that was the strongest calling, or theme, that drew me to the material.

Can you comment on the siblings anonymous scene – did the actors [Frank Stallone and Stephen Baldwin] need to be talked into it?
Vince Vaughn: We didn’t recruit [laughs] – they were interested in coming and we sort of re-wrote the scene that day. It was important to me to make sure that it wasn’t at anybody’s expense. I like comedy to be inclusive at its best. Always the stuff that I’ve done, whether it’s Wedding Crashers or Dodgeball or even The Break-Up, where the first part was more comedic, is not to be polarising or at someone’s expense. At it’s best it includes people and makes everyone feel welcome. I thought it was important for that scene to have a laugh but to be respectful as well.

Was it a deliberate decision to set the film in Chicago rather than, say, New York?
Vince Vaughn: That was the one thing I said when they sent me the script. I said: “OK, but let’s make it Chicago.” They were nice to do that, they figured there’d been enough stuff out of New York so it was okay to move one to Chicago.

Was that for the old home town?
Vince Vaughn: I grew up outside the city, so I’m kind of partial to it. I like New York a lot as a city, but I just wanted to do something for my hometown.

Did you know David Dobkin before making Clay Pigeons with him?
Vince Vaughn: I didn’t, when I met David Dobkin I didn’t know him, I read the screenplay and thought it was interesting. He convinced me in that first meeting to do the movie because he had such a specific idea on the story. He talked about the camera in a way that I didn’t even understand back then. I just really took to him right away.

Are you still fond of that film?
Vince Vaughn: I’m very fond of Clay Pigeons, yeah. I think he did a great job with that. And it was a fun character to play as well.

Who came up with the idea of Santa gate-crashing the Jewish family home?
Vince Vaughn: We had a Muslim family in there too, that will be on the DVD. That’s actually a shorter version than the one we used. Originally, I came down the chimney and I kind of looked at them and they looked at me and I said: “OK, hold on…” And I gave gifts to the kids to kind of break the ice. And then he offered me some of the bread and I said: “No, I can’t…” But then proceed to take all their food. Then we did it with a Muslim family as well, but they kind of have a truncated version of the one scene because in that third act as we’re delivering the presents there’s a sense of urgency, there are stakes in the movie, so you can’t really stop for the joke.

Are you hopeless when it comes to Christmas shopping?
Vince Vaughn: I think that’s an important question and it’s very important as well to keep that bar very low. It’s like if you worked in a factory and one guy got bored one day and shows off how many papers he can print on a machine – beat him up! You don’t want to have that kind of pressure on you. So, I do think it’s important to keep the bar very low – you don’t want to overwhelm. If you have a neighbour or a friend who over buys – you’re like: “Thanks a lot, guy!”

Did Kevin Spacey manage to recruit you for The Old Vic?
Vince Vaughn: I actually did the 24-hour play thing over there. Paul [Giamatti] was like: “A friend in need is a pest…” And he found a way to avoid that. But I got a kick out of it because I went there at first and the theatre crowd was like: “Who’s this guy, how dare you step on the stage!” And this was a 24-hour play – you actually had lines written. I was performing live improv in Chicago at 16, and we didn’t have any lines, so to me that seemed kind of not that hard of a thing to do.

What’s in the future for you?
Vince Vaughn: I did a documentary, a travelling variety comedy show where I went from Los Angeles through the south west, the south, the Midwest and Chicago. I wanted to take a live variety comedy show to a lot of towns that normally don’t get that kind of thing. You almost have to go to New York or Los Angeles or Vegas to see those kind of shows. I wanted to bring a good comedy show to peoples’ back yards, so that was fun. [Jon] Favreau came and performed with me and Dwight Yoakam and Justin Long and a bunch of stand ups.

I’m also doing another Christmas movie, called Four Christmases with Reese Witherspoon. It’s more of an adult romantic comedy Christmas movie, where we both come from divorced families and avoid and lie to our families to avoid Christmas. Then we get stuck going to all four families on one day. Robert Duvall is playing my father and Favreau is playing my brother. It’s a very funny – but more of a PG-13 comedy.

b>Read our review of Fred Claus

b>Read our interview with Paul Giamatti

b>Read our interview with David Dobkin

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