The holiday season is quickly approaching, and CBS is embracing all things merry and bright with a movie that could leave everybody feeling much more festive by the time the final credits roll. Fit for Christmas will arrive in the 2022 TV schedule on December 4 with The Talk’s Amanda Kloots as the leading lady opposite Hallmark’s Paul Greene. Kloots opened up to CinemaBlend about Fit for Christmas as her very first holiday movie, how her Broadway background has helped, and working with Greene!
Amanda Kloots is already a familiar face for CBS fans as a co-host of The Talk, which she joined full-time in late 2020. In Fit for Christmas, she plays a fitness instructor by the name of Audrey, who is obsessed with Christmas in the town of Mistletoe, Montana. The charming Griffin (played by Paul Greene) comes to town with a business plan for the beloved community center where Audrey teaches, and it seems safe to say that not everybody will be feeling the holiday spirit as much as others!
Playing Audrey in a Christmas movie is of course very different from The Talk, which has been running since 2010 with a shifting roster of hosts. When Amanda Kloots spoke with CinemaBlend about her new project, she explained what her experience was like in shifting from a talk show to a scripted movie:
Well, I knew that I wanted to prepare myself as best as possible for going back into this acting world that I sort of know from Broadway, but definitely have never been a star in a movie. So I had an acting coach that I hired about a month before we started filming, to kind of just refresh my memory and things and how to do these scenes and such, and she was wonderful. Her name is Lesly Kahn, and she really, really helped me to prepare for this.
Prior to coming to Los Angeles, Kloots was in Broadway productions and a Radio City Rockette, so performing was nothing new to her. Acting as the star of a movie is quite different from what she has done before, however, and an acting coach was able to help her get ready for the holiday movie.
Amanda Kloots – who is also now a celebrity fitness trainer with workout skills that definitely come in handy for Fit for Christmas – went on to share that her Broadway experience “absolutely” helped her for filming the project, and elaborated:
The greatest thing about Broadway is that it prepares you for everything in life. I've been in front of the camera and done film and TV before, so it wasn't that I was a complete fish out of water, but it was definitely a new challenge taking on the lead in a movie and having that weight and responsibility of being number one on a call sheet. Broadway just is such discipline and the long hours and the rehearsing and wanting to get it right and everything. I think that's what really comes in handy on set – on these long days, remembering lines, responding quick, improving – all of that I think is very helpful from my Broadway training.
Fit for Christmas (which she also executive produced) may not be a stage musical, but the skills that served her so well in theater translated to her work on her first TV movie. Plus, the extended trailer for the movie reveals that not only will Amanda Kloots be able to bring her distinct style of fitness to the small screen, but also be part of a good old-fashioned kickline!
The actress also had a leading man who knows his way around a Christmas movie. Paul Greene has starred in a range of Hallmark movies including A Christmas Detour, Christmas in Angel Falls, and Christmas CEO, to name just a few. Also an alum of the network’s When Calls the Heart, he brought plenty of holiday experience to Fit for Christmas. When asked what it was like to work with him as such a veteran of the genre, Kloots said:
The Christmas movie legend! He was the best. He was just the most wonderful co-star I could have asked for. He never made me feel nervous or anxious or that he had ten of these under his belt and that I was brand new. He was the most generous, kind scene partner, human being, now friend forever [that] I could have asked for. I love the guy [and] can't say enough good things about him.
Amanda Kloots only had praise for Paul Greene (who recently weighed in on on the Candace Cameron Bure controversy) as her scene partner, although his character may not make such a positive impression on Kloots’ Audrey when they first meet! Of course, with the movie celebrating the holly jolly season in a town called Mistletoe, can a businessman keep his mind solely on business? And can Audrey work some Christmas magic?
Find out with Fit for Christmas on Sunday, December 4 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS. The movie also stars Rebecca Budig of All My Children and was directed by Jessica Harmon, who viewers may recognize from her work in front of the camera on The 100 and iZombie. Be sure to tune in, and check out Paramount+ with a subscription for a rewatch after the movie premieres!
