Henry Golding, Emma Thompson preview 'love letter to London' Last Christmas at CinemaCon
Get ready for Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding to fall in love amid the dreamy backdrop of festive London in the upcoming rom-com Last Christmas.
Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), screenwriter Emma Thompson, and director Paul Feig screened the first trailer for the film at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Wednesday, taking the stage for Universal’s presentation wearing Santa hats and throwing candy canes to the audience.
The trailer (which has not been publicly released) introduced down-on-her-luck Kate (Clarke), who returns to London with dreams of being a singer and takes a job in a year-around Christmas shop. Her dislike for all things Yuletide is evident in her work, as her taskmaster boss (Michelle Yeoh) calls her a lazy elf. But Kate’s luck changes when she meets Tom (Golding), who comes to her store (only for a bird to poop into her eye) and asks her out, starting a romance that’ll include a date at a ice skating rink.
As Thompson noted, Last Christmas is inspired by the Wham holiday song of the same name — which made her an unlikely person to pen the script. “I was asked if I would like to write a story based on the song ‘Last Christmas,’ and I said no, not really, because I didn’t really like the song,” Thompson told the audience between quips that included asking why she wasn’t in Downton Abbey. “Then I thought of the lyrics, ‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart,’ and I think I could think of something, and we spent seven years writing this story.”
Feig, who named It’s A Wonderful Life as one of his favorite holiday movies, said he’d spent his career waiting to make a Christmas film when Thompson sent him the script for this.
Golding added, “We were in the U.K. and it was the longest Chrismtas I’ve experienced, filming from December to February, filming in the streets of London. It’s a love letter to that city.”
Last Christmas opens Nov. 15.
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