Your Christmas or Mine 2's Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk talk festive traditions and embracing rom-com tropes
The festive film premieres on Prime Video on Friday, 8 December
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Watch: Your Christmas or Mine 2 stars Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk talk the festive sequel
Your Christmas or Mine and its sequel are festive family films that gave its lead stars Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk the chance to embrace the "fun" rom-com tropes you normally only see in the movies.
In their new film Butterfield and Kirk's characters James and Hayley find themselves swapping Christmases again, only this time the whole family is involved as they accidentally swap hotels during a skiing trip to Austria, organised by James' dad.
Speaking to Yahoo UK about Your Christmas or Mine 2, which lands on Prime Video on 8 December, the actors share how playing James and Hayley has given them the chance to have that moment where they run through an airport and stop a plane to reunite with one another.
"I saw another side to Stansted Airport, I'm gonna be honest," Butterfield joked about the scene, proving that what may look romantic on the outside is anything but in reality.
"Honestly, we spent two days there. I saw the inner workings, I saw the place that your bags go after they disappeared and it was not that impressive — it's just like rooms and conveyor belts. It's not Toy Story, basically."
Despite this, though, Butterfield says he was ready to embrace the rom com trope with vigour:
"It was fun, it's that very classic Christmas trope and I feel like a lot of actors are probably like 'one day, I'll do that one day. I'll have my Christmas in the airport.' [But] we've already done it, so we can we can look on to some new things."Asa Butterfield
Kirk concurred with her co-star, sharing: "I know, I wouldn't even say I thought about it in that way when we were filming it, it was just another day."
The actor went on to joke that even if it was like any other day it still felt "very epic", saying: "There were moments throughout the first and second film where I was convinced that I would look like James Bond, like running through the field or running off an aeroplane, and actually I look like a bit of an idiot.
"But it's alright cause I think Haley is endearing in that way because I think she thinks she's very cool and and she's a bit of a silly sausage."
To ski or not to ski
Butterfield and Kirk were delighted to reunite together for the sequel, with Kirk likening it to going "back into Jurassic Park" and facing "new mix ups [and] new dilemmas".
"I think what's nice is me and Asa have known each other for the same amount of time that James and Haley have, and in the first film it's all very new, very fresh and that was very much like our friendship," Kirk shares.
"And as the years have progressed and our friendship was more grounded, so have James and Halley's relationship, and it's been nice to sort of parallel the film with just you and me in real life and being a lot more grounded, a lot more safe with each other, and hopefully it translates on screen that."
Butterfied concurred with his co-star, sharing: "I think my favourite thing about the first one was all the people we were working with and this unlikely family [we made]. To come back and spend another few weeks with these people on a ski resort on the top of a mountain in Austria, getting up to even more chaos and fun was a great way to spend some of our summer."
Despite getting to be on the slopes for the film, the actors actually weren't allowed to ski themselves in case any accidents happened on set. Kirk admitted she "can't ski" anyway so it wasn't an issue, as Butterfield says: "We didn't want to send her down the mountain and that's it."
"I like skiing. I did at one point have a little [moment] I might come down a little slope by myself when no one was looking."Asa Butterfield
The actors admit they're keen to make more, with Kirk sharing: "On set, we felt much more able to delve deeper into these characters and hopefully we can delve even deeper if Prime Video want to do a third one, that would be lovely. Maybe somewhere hot [with] crystal clear water. We can't confirm or deny because we don't know but we've had home, we've had cold, now let's go somewhere hot."
On Christmas traditions and sending a message
Your Christmas or Mine 2, like its predecessor, examines the notion of festive traditions and how different each family's one can be to another. James and Hayley's families, for example, celebrate Christmas in very different ways, and in the sequel they try to embrace each other's traditions like the men going down to the pub and women enjoying a spa day.
Reflecting on their own family traditions and how it compares, Butterfield shares: "I love Christmas. My family, we've got quite classic Christmas traditions, like it hits December 1st [there's] Christmas songs on the stereo, presents are out, tinsels up on the wall. We love our board games, we love our food. Boxing Day is just like food coma, playing whatever board games we've unwrapped on Christmas the day before, it's my favourite time of year."
Kirk, meanwhile, has a different experience: "We don't have many Christmas traditions, but I can say that my mum is quite similar to Hayley's mum in terms of if anything changed about Christmas, if we had to go abroad, she would not be happy in the slightest. She'd be like, 'get me back to Oldham'."
While the festive film is certainly easy viewing, it also has a message about classism given the differences between James and Hayley's family, their economic background and their approach to the holidays.
"Money struggles is something that comes up as a big theme of the film," Kirk says. "And I guess the climate we're in at the moment I think a lot of people will be able to feel with our characters because people are going through the same thing.
Especially over Christmas, I think people feel like there's an obligation to spend money or to give, and really this film's about [how] the most important thing you give someone is being with them, just being with your family and that's really the best gift of Christmas. As cliché as it sounds, that's one of the stories I think this film really promotes."
Your Christmas or Mine premieres on Prime Video on Friday, 8 December.
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Watch the trailer for Your Christmas or Mine 2
