November 25th, 2020 
Jackson Murphy 
Damien O’Connor was nominated for an Emmy for the 2017 holiday special Angela’s Christmas. Now he’s written and directed a sequel special. Angela’s Christmas Wish debuts this Tuesday December 1st on Netflix. O’Connor hopes it brings families some warmth and comfort over this holiday season.
Jackson Murphy: We’ve had Frosty Returns and Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice, but not a lot of holiday specials get sequel installments. Why did you decide to do a sequel to Angela’s Christmas?
Damien O’Connor: We did the first film and obviously you fall in love with the characters. You fall in love with the world and the environment. When Netflix said, “Look, do you have any ideas for the sequel?” we were thinking through them in our head. I was bouncing ideas off of people. And then I had this idea about looking for the dad. Where is the dad? About the time I was going to pitch that, I actually got audience research back from the first film. And one of the questions the kids asked was, “Where is the dad?” Some people think he went to prison. So that was really, really good. “You want to know where he is?” Let’s do the sequel. Let’s explain that and show everyone. [And] here’s hoping there will be many more!
JM: That’d be great. What were some of the unexpected challenges you faced in making this one as opposed to the first one.
DOC: One of the biggest challenges, obviously, was Frank McCourt. He wrote the original book that the first film was based on. Frank is obviously deceased [he passed away in 2009] so we didn’t have his foundations there. It’s big shoes to fill. You’re stepping into a Pulitzer Prize winning author and going, “I can follow you from that story.” We were very lucky because we had Malachy McCourt, who’s Frank’s brother. He actually narrates the first film. He knows the world by heart. He’s lived it. He’s in the book Angela’s Ashes quite frequently. He’s great. I could meet him in New York, [call] him, talk to him and say, “Am I accurate? Is this fair to your life at the time?” And we also had Ellen Frey McCourt as an executive producer. That’s Frank’s widow. She was very involved in the first film so it was really great to have her there to guide us. It’s such an invaluable resource.
JM: This is set a little more than 100 years ago. What fascinates you about [that time period] and wanting to explore it in animation?
DOC: It’s a really interesting time, especially in Irish history. Obviously, from a historical standpoint, I guess because we’re dealing with children it’s not so relevant about the world at large. I always like to think it’s kind of big stories for little people. The events of Angela’s films are gonna be massive to a child. What I love though, from a purely storytelling point of view: you don’t have a mobile phone, you don’t have communication, you can’t just jump on the internet and say, “Where’s Australia?” Otherwise, it’d be a pretty short film, right? So that all helped.
Damien O’Connor
JM: You show the dynamic between children and adults at that time – when they’re in the library and the pub and different homes. How did you explore approaching those scenes?
DOC: I don’t know if the dynamic has hugely changed, really. I’m a child of Ireland in the 1970s and you spent a lot of time in bars. We’re all pretty used to bars and those interactions with adults… it was scary because you were a kid and they were big and they [hover] over you. I think the Irish adore children but at the same time we treat them on a fairly adult plane. So it’s just trying to keep it authentic and true. That’s always what I’m really striving for.
JM: And I really like the dock sequence as the children are trying to make it onto the boat – meticulously. How was it crafting that? There are steps… that go into that over the course of the sequence.
DOC: That is the big set piece. In the first film, that big sequence was stealing the Baby Jesus. And what I loved about that… Darren Hendley, the composer and I were like, “Look, this is a heist in a child’s world.” So we’ll approach it the same way… musically, the way we construct the camera and building the tension. And I really like how it turned out. And people would say to me, “We love the church sequence.” So I knew from early on we were gonna have a second one.
Honestly the way I construct [the dock sequence] is almost like peaks and troughs. It’s like a mini film. The characters have a goal… and in this case it’s to get to a location. And they get thwarted in their attempts to get to the location. And each time they’re thwarted, it needs to be slightly bigger jeopardy from the first time. So that’s how I build the sequence: mini event, bigger event, the biggest event and then they either succeed or fail. And then you bring in the tech director and the model builders and all of the team. It’s a big challenge.
JM: The whole team did a great job! One of the other focal points of it is the importance of a photograph. Is there a photograph that stands out in your mind like when Angela looks at her dad?
DOC: That’s a really good question. Okay, there are two answers to this. One is: the genuine, historical photos of the family at the time. We go to the Frank McCourt Museum in Limerick and they will show us… “Here’s the actual house. Here’s Angela as a fully grown woman. Here’s Angela before she goes to America and her life goes wrong.” There’s a real poignancy there. In my own life… when you see photos of your kids and they’re teeny tiny… my son is 11 now and my daughter is six. When I see a photo of my son at three, there’s a weird poignancy to that too because you kind of go, “Where is that person?” I mean – it’s great: there’s a beautiful, intelligent, lovely 11 year old, but it’s kind of like, “Where’s the cute three year old?” Seeing photos of your kids as they grow. Maybe it’s just me.
JM: No, I think a lot of people would agree with you. Ruth Negga and Jared Harris each bring something substantial to their roles. What do you like the most about working with them and what they’re able to do with their voice performances in this?
DOC: Ruth is brilliant. They’re all brilliant. Ruth is fantastic. I never worked with Ruth before the first film. I was really happy when she signed on. She had been nominated for the Oscar [for Loving], so it was amazing that she came on to do it. Really love working with her on the first film. The records are relatively quick. You record and that’s it. We all move on our ways. This time around was brilliant because she had seen the first film and really liked it, and I know her younger family relatives liked the film. So when she came in this time, she already had that groundwork there. It was a real joy working with her. With Jared: similar situation. These guys and girls come in and they prep and if you have your homework done… you can have a pretty pleasant time. It’s great.
It’s difficult because they’re saying their lines and then Lucy [O’Connell], who plays Angela, is responding back in Ireland two weeks later completely in a void. And then when you put it together, there’s always that worry that you’re not gonna get everyone talking the way they should be talking.
JM: That it’s not going to feel natural.
DOC: So that’s why when you’re directing with the actors it’s a bit strange because unlike live-action, you’re not going, “Try this way. Try that way.” You’re saying, “Angela responds in a certain way so you have to say it in this particular way in order to motivate this response”… which may have already been recorded and they won’t have heard it. But these guys are brilliant. They rise up and do it. I’d work with them both again in a heartbeat. I hope they can say the same about me!
JM: I think they will! Not to spoil the latter part of it but a certain moment happens. And Angela’s expression on her face when this key moments… it’s also in stages and I love looking at her in that moment because it looks like how we would all react if we were in the same situation. Do you study faces and people getting emotional? You do a great job with that moment.
DOC: Well, thank you very much. No. I was tempted to give the jokey answer of saying, “Yeah. When my kids react like that, I sit there observing them coldly.” But no. (laughs) That was one of the first things we animated because it’s a big moment in the film and it’s got to be handled well. We’re really lucky… to have some really great animators. Those beats were written in the script because it is how people respond, generally, when you’re hit with a moment like that. Once we have it down, you can kind of act it out to the animators and they can act it out to you. But the real benefit of it is you get to see it in rough and then you get to see it animated… so you can make sure it’s there. It ties back to keeping it authentic and real because… what I love about that moment is that we almost sort of go into a documentary. It’s a moment that’s handled, I hope, truthfully. It’s how children react. I like the way it twists and makes you go, “Oh, that’s real” as opposed to the more polished, Hollywood-y version of it.
JM: Yeah.
DOC: Now people are gonna be like, “What the Hell are they talking about?”
JM: (laughs) When you watch this, you will understand it! And you were nominated last time for a Daytime Emmy for writing Angela’s Christmas. How was that experience and what would it mean to you to be nominated again for this?
DOC: It was a wonderful experience because… you get to sit terrified and nervous for three hours. It was really good. Ruth was nominated as well and Steven Maher was nominated for the Emmy for Best Sound. We were really lucky we had three nominations. Look, I would love to get another one, to be honest. I really would. Who wouldn’t? I guess now we’ve got a barometer: a level to obtain. But honestly, I’m more happy if people like the film than the accolades. Just knowing people like it is such a relief. Everything after that is just the cherry on top.
JM: Besides having families watch this over the holidays, what is your 2020 “Christmas Wish”?
DOC: That’s a biggie. Well, we’re currently in a lockdown in Ireland because of the pandemic. There’s talk about lifting it… so I hope that happens. I hope people are able to get out and have a relatively normal Christmas. We’ve all been cooped up for so long. On a grander “If I could wish for anything in the world” I just want them to come out and say there’s gonna be a vaccine in the spring. That’s it. So let’s say Christmas 2021 is my wish for Christmas 2020.
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