‘Bit of a Grinch’: Claudia Karvan hates Christmas movies, but she made one anyway

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Claudia Karvan has a terrible admission: She is a Christmas grinch. She’s never watched a Christmas movie. Well, except for Love, Actually, and that was for research purposes only.

“I know people who love Christmas movies, and they sit around with their family and watch them. I’ve always been a little bit of a Grinch,” she says with a grimace. “So embracing this film – for both [co-creator] Kelsey [Munro] and I – it’s a whole other string to our bow, a genre we never thought would be attempting.”

Karvan is talking about Bump: A Christmas Film, the (possibly) last on-screen adventure of the Chalmers-Davis clan from the big-hearted, utterly delightful comedy Bump.

And if you’re wondering, hang on, didn’t Bump end earlier this year with the (spoiler alert!) death of – I’m still crying, you’re still crying – Karvan’s character Angie, you are not wrong. The film is set between episodes nine and 10 of Bump’s fifth and final season. A clue was even left behind in that final season: a family photo of them on a cruise ship.

“It was while we were plotting the fifth series of Bump,” says Karvan. “And [streaming service] Stan had been suggesting over the whole series – ‘When can you guys come up with a Christmas movie?’ – and we were always pretty dismissive and pretty eye-rolly about it. We’re like, ‘As if we’re doing that.’ It felt like a bit of a pragmatic business opportunity, and it never felt like it fit within our storytelling.

“But they planted the seed, thank god … and we thought, ‘Oh, wow. So we could actually put a little Easter egg in episode eight’, which we did. We had the little photo of the cruise. And we’re like, ‘That’s how we could do it. We could play off on our South American family.’

“They are a big part, an integral part, of the storytelling, and we thought we could do this contained sort of bubble episode set in South America on a ship, and then we have a lot of creative license and high jinks at sea, everyone trapped together, and we give beautiful Paula Garcia her big moment in the sun, which she fully deserves.”

And that is where Bump: A Christmas Film does a radical U-turn from any Christmas movie before it. As Karvan’s character Angie says from the beginning: “It’s work, it’s stressful. There’s so much plastic, so much waste.”

It’s a sentiment you won’t find in any of the Hollywood or Hallmark Christmas films, nor will you find a cheery sunburnt Australiana take on the genre in the movie. What you do get, instead, is a Colombian Christmas – which swaps out Santa for the baby Jesus, with celebrations lasting for most of December. It’s less silent night, more holy moley, there’s a lot of noise going on.

“We did not do our Christmas movie research, so we went out there completely novices and just did it our own way,” says Karvan. “I don’t think we ticked any Australian boxes, to be honest. We really just wanted to infect Australians with Colombian traditions.

“It would be my dream to see a crowd of people running around their suburb doing Dia de las maletas, which is a real tradition on New Year’s Eve, where you run around your neighbourhood with a suitcase, and it will bring you the opportunity for more travel that year.”

Bringing those Colombian traditions to the fore of the film is Garcia, who plays Rosa, Santi’s stepmother. The family cruise was her idea and, standing in front of a map of South America, she acts as the film’s suitably exuberant narrator.

“I was so excited, so excited,” says Garcia, who was born in Colombia and moved to Australia not long before she was cast in Bump. “I think I sent [Kelsey] and Claudia 1000 emails with links – ‘This is what we do. And look at this, and this is the lights and all the traditions.’”

Bump’s Colombian connections are part of what has made it so unique on Australian screens. With Garcia, and Carlos Sanson Junior, who plays Santi, as well as Claudia de Giusti, who plays Santi’s Argentinian abuela, Bernadita, it has opened a window to a South American community rarely seen on TV.

“The Latino community is huge in Australia, gigantic,” says Garcia. “I had no idea before coming here. It was a surprise for me that there were so many Colombians, so many Brazilians, and Mexicans, Argentinians, Chileans – we’re everywhere.

“They really feel happy to see a little bit of the culture on Australian television, and also the mix of cultures. That’s what they love because that’s our real life, right? We have Australian friends, Latino and Australian couples everywhere. So they’re coming up to me saying, ‘Thank you. I love when you said this’, ‘I love when they showed this about Latino culture.’”

Having a foot in two cultures is one of the threads of the film. Rosa’s two teenage sons, who were both born in Australia, don’t feel as connected to Colombia as they do to Australia, while Santi is trying to reclaim his roots by brushing up on his Spanish.

“That’s been my – and I guess that also leads into Santi’s story – that’s been my experience, too,” says Sanson, who has a Cuban/Chilean/Nicaraguan background. “Especially navigating a career as an actor. It’s like, am I too Australian to play this Latin role, or am I not Latin enough to play [this Latin role]. It’s this interesting hybrid of growing up in Australia, but coming from a Latina family.”

Having a foot in both camps did come in handy when filming the movie. While most of it was shot in Sydney, Garcia, Santos and Karvan went on two guerilla-style filming missions to Colombia to get footage on the ground.

That meant they travelled with their character costumes stuffed in the bags – Karvan had her short-haired wig in a pocket, ready to be whipped out when needed – and a doll as a stand-in for the story’s eight-week-old baby, Angelo.

“We just filmed each other,” says Karvan. “And I had to get the Sharpie pen out and draw on all of Carlos’ tattoos each day. It was hilarious. Carlos and I went manic, just sleep-deprived and crying with laughter.

“We just had to capture the Christmas lights, because that is unique to Colombia. No one else does Christmas lights like that. So it was essential that we saw them with our own eyes and filmed them and we just wandered around. We got so many weird looks. We were carrying this fake baby in a BabyBjorn and people were like, ‘What is going on?’”

Surely, someone must have recognised you on the plane?

“No,” says Karvan. “We just disturbed a few passengers. They’re like, ‘Excuse me, this is a bit weird. What are you doing with that baby?’ And it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s a doll…’”

As for whether Bump: A Christmas Movie will end up as the first instalment of some type of Bump extended universe, Karvan already has some ideas.

“I did say [at the premiere] last night, ‘Hey, if anyone’s got a compelling pitch for Bump the horror movie…’” says Karvan. “And someone came up to me afterwards and went, ‘You know, you could do a horror movie and just call it A Bump in the Night.’”

Bump: A Christmas Movie streams on Stan from November 30.

Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.

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