Danny and Lucy DeVito on How Family Holiday Traditions Inspired New Film ‘A Sudden Case of Christmas’
Danny DeVito and Lucy DeVito’s new movie, A Sudden Case of Christmas, features a family’s unexpected Yuletide in August — and the father daughter duo are revealing their own unique and fun holiday traditions in honor of the holiday spirit.
“What was really cool about our Christmases and our Thanksgivings, were that if anyone didn't have a place to go, they would come and hang with us,” Lucy, 41, exclusively told Us Weekly. “We’d have a few friends, they would stay over, they would get the Christmas pajamas also. And I guess like everyone has their own traditions, but ours was just, like, we would hang out in our pajamas all day and eat pancakes and leftovers.”
Lucy is the eldest daughter of Danny, 79, and wife Rhea Perlman. The pair, who tied the knot in 1982 but have been separated since 2012, also share daughter Grace and son Jake. Danny told Us that despite it being harder to wrangle the family up for the holidays in recent years, they try their best to come together for special occasions — one way or another.
“In the early days [it] was easy peasy to get the three kids and Rhea and I [together for the holidays],” he said with a laugh, adding that it wasn’t until his children hit those “teenage years” that things became more challenging.
“They go, ‘Oh, let's go to X place to holiday’ or something like that. And they give you that look of, like, ‘What about my friends? I'm gonna leave my buddies for give or six days?!’” he continued.“So we’ve infused our [holidays with our] family vacations — a lot of them at home, too. We’ve just embraced every holiday.”
A Sudden Case of Christmas centers on estranged couple Abbie (Lucy) and Jacob (Wilmer Valderrama), who bring their 10-year-old daughter, Claire (Antonella Rose), to her grandfather’s (Danny) hotel in Italy for summer vacation — and to break the news that they are separating. Hoping to bring her parents back together, Claire asks that the family celebrate one last Christmas together, despite it being the middle of August.
Recognizing their own family in Claire’s determination to spend a holiday with loved ones — and serve as a safe space for those who may not have a place to go — is exactly what made Danny and Lucy want to be part of the film in the first place.
“The idea is to have a place to go … I think with our house, we always had friends and relatives — a straggler here and there — and I think that's common,” Danny explained, adding, “That’s one of the great things about the movie. Even though there are these bumps in the road, there are little things going on, and surprises that you wouldn't normally think of for a Christmas movie. They mean even more, they resonate even more, because of the warmth and love that [this family] embraces.”
There was also the draw of the father and daughter duo getting to work together again. The pair initially teamed up in 2022 for FX’s animated series Little Demon, in which Danny voiced Satan and Lucy played his daughter, the anti-Christ. Last year, they shared the stage in Broadway’s I Need That.
“We love each other,” Lucy explained of her and her dad’s creative collaborations. “We love working together and, it's like, what a better way to spend time, you know? It’s just amazing. And to be able to do a Christmas movie on top of it? It's so appropriate. It's all about family. It's all about being together and spending the time [together]. And I feel so lucky that I'm able to work with my dad on multiple occasions. And it’s good casting — we’re father daughter!”
Danny, meanwhile, told Us it was always in the “long term plan” to do a Christmas movie together, and director Peter Chelsom offered them the perfect script. “And, by the way, we got to go to the Dolomites to do it,” he noted. “Which is so beautiful.”
Joking that he and Lucy have been together “since she was a baby,” Danny pointed out that the twosome have a built in “chemistry.”
“I’ve worked with people over and over and over again in my career, and I'm really thrilled that Lucy and I have a similar affinity for support and help,” he explained. “It's really big with actors. I work with Michael Douglas a lot, and Jack [Nicolson], and, you know, many people over and over. And like, for me, that is what it’s [about] — besides the fact that she's my daughter — and I love her.”
If getting to recreate Christmas on screen together wasn’t enough, Danny and Lucy also reveled in the opportunity to tell a realistic story about how sometimes, family holidays don’t always look picture perfect — but things like grief, divorce and other outside obstacles don’t erase the magic.
“I think it's so relatable. It’s really refreshing to see a story of a family that has its flaws and its quirks, which we all do,” Lucy said. “And I think that I love Christmas movies that are glossy and by the numbers, happy and fantastical, and this is happy too, but in a very real way. We are all trying to make do with our certain given situations, and they're always changing. So it’s really great to see that representation of a flawed family, but one that loves each other. I think that that's what the holidays are all about.”
A Sudden Case of Christmas hits select theaters and on demand Friday, November 8.