When her beloved family dog, Nugget, falls sick over Christmas, Steph Stool (Vic Zerbst)must abandon her very elegant holiday plans with her boyfriend’s family, and return instead to her small coastal hometown to confront the chaos of her own… less elegant family. In he week leading up to Christmas, each member of the Stool family must grapple with the mortality of the one thing that unifies them.
As Nugget Is Dead: A Christmas Story premieres November 21, only on Stan, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the film’s writing and acting duo, Jenna Owen and Vic Zerbst, about being dog lovers, the key elements to an Aussie Christmas, and the catharsis of finding comedy in family issues.
Nick: I want to start with what might be an obvious question – but are you both dog lovers?
Jenna Owen: You know what? That’s actually the first time we’ve been asked that question! Imagine if we were like, “No. Never cared for them.” [laughs]
Vic Zerbst: I think we’ve had different relationships with dog species. Like, I grew up a cat person. I always loved cats, and I was a bit more hesitant around dogs. One of my ex-girlfriends had a dog, and I fell in love with that dog. Like, I’m better friends now with the dog than I am with my ex [laughs].
And I actually like big dogs. That dog was 40% Great Dane. A huge dog! And that’s when I knew that dogs were the thing for me. Every single day, I wish I had a dog. And also meeting Jenna’s dog, Zuri, may he rest in peace.
Jenna Owen: Rest in peace. I’m a huge dog person. The only thing I want for my life is enough stability to be able to actually have a dog, because it’s so hard when you live in Sydney, and you move around. I would love to have a place that would allow for that. That’s both of our dreams right now.
I didn’t grow up in a crazy dog family. It took a lot of convincing to get my family to get a dog. My dad had grown up with them, but my parents went to like the worst possible place you could immediately go, and they would always go, “A dog will die.” And that stopped my family from getting a dog for years! My brother and I finally convinced them, when I moved out, they decided to get one to replace me! And they literally called it Jenna! They told me they wanted to call her Jenna because we had the same personality.
But it bonded my family so much. It was so good for when we went through some hard years. It was such a good presence of unconditional love that is so electric and amazing to have around. It’s like having a young child. Because once you grow up, and nobody puts the airs and graces on for you anymore, but they will for the dog. Like, they wanted to do a nice Christmas for Zuri.
Nick: And I guess this movie is like a heightened version of art imitating life! How much catharsis did you both find bringing aspects of your life into this script?
Jenna Owen: The movie is such a hybrid of both Vic and my families and experiences. I think that structure of that Wollongong style family, with the very vibrant extended family, is very much based on the structure of my family. But it was honestly such a joyous process writing this with Vic because a lot of the harder tensions and stuff had been, maybe, resolved or at least softened within my family. So, I came into this writing process from a place of love and understanding. This probably isn’t a film I could have written years ago, or at the start of our careers. And it was such a fun thing to dip into the Christmas movie formula, because it’s so established, and then give our unique experiences to it.
Vic Zerbst: It’s exactly what you said about catharsis. I remember when Jen was going through this really hectic Christmas when Zuri was sick, and it was always the question of, “Is today the day?” Jenna would send me these voice memos updating me on what was happening, and they just became increasingly more hilarious. The more details about family, and the catharsis and humour you find in those moments.
You find humour in the uncertainty, in the grief, in the madness, in everyone’s weird quirks, and whatever else comes up in the family. Just being able to find the humour in those things that can be so challenging, just because it’s so ridiculous. And those voice messages from Jenna being like, “Dude, this is so sad, but it’s also so funny that this is all happening.” And it let us hold space for both the grief and the humour of all of it.
And for me, when it comes to family, I know there’s two modes when I go home. Either I’m so uptight and triggered by everything and can’t deal with what my parents are saying. They’re nuts. They’re talking and I’m stressed by it. Or I just have a laugh, and find myself laughing so much because there’s things that they say that I just find hilarious.
Jenna Owen: It’s exactly that! It’s two modes of relaxing into it and feeling like these are some of the funniest people I know. Or I’m literally so tense inside. Like, I’m not going to eat my own teeth…
Vic Zerbst: Eat your own teeth. I love that. [laughs]
Jenna Owen: [laughs] Yeah, like they’re gonna crumble up in my mouth and I’m going to swallow them. Because that’s how I am! But, like, we all play different roles in our family. I know the role I play when I come home. It’s like a hype role. I’m not known as the emotional one in my family. My brother is the one that has the softness, and cries, and can talk about things.
When our dog was sick, my brother just couldn’t talk about anything other than the dog being well. And my mother and him would keep being like, “I’ve been watching Zuri all day and I think he’s getting better”. And me and my dad would just sit there and be like, we can’t engage. But then, he’s secretly looking things up on the computer about Zuri being sick. And we wanted elements of all of this to be in here.
Nick: When you have a story that’s so personal to you, and also has this inherently Australian filter over it too, do you find that this specific, niche is also kind of weirdly universal and relatable to audiences outside of Australia?
Vic Zerbst: Yeah, that’s exactly right! I think the strangest thing about this whole journey is that we always wanted to make a film that was so unashamedly Australian, and we didn’t lean away from any of the Australian intonations, all those little things that make Australia the thing we love and the thing we want to see on screen. When we found out the script had been sent to CBS in America, and they wanted to buy the film based on the script, I think we realised that there was something so specific about this Australian world that does actually translate into this universal zone.
All the details are different and specific, but it feels real and lived in. Like, you can change Jatz crackers and cheddar cheese for a devilled egg and cheese spray. That’s American, right?
Jenna Owen: Everyone appreciates specificity because it feels real. When people talk in these vague metaphors or whatever you sometimes see on screen, that’s one of the things I’m most militant about. Like, when I watch something, I want it to ring true with specificity. That’s the difference between something being phony or sanitised by networks or execs.
At no point did Kath & Kim ever pull back from specificity, you know? I bet they would’ve had a million notes. Can they be different names? Can this be a different mall? No, because people go to that type of mall. It doesn’t matter if you’re from that place in particular, but we all have our version of that mall. It’s about being specific in the aesthetic of it.
Vic Zerbst: I also think the thing that we always find when you’re writing for yourself as an actor, you are drawn to spending a bit more time in the details. You want to explore what the funniest thing to say might be, or what the juiciest word could be to take it to the next level.
And because we’re on screen, we have that same reference for all of the characters. It’s like caring about that part of the process. You’re writing for someone to say something, and to have the passion and extra bit of care, it just adds this extra level of your attention and detail, because you care so much about the person who’s going to say those words.
Jenna Owen: I remember there was this moment that was so good, and it was one of the reasons we as creators felt so respected by the actors. We didn’t necessarily know how it was going to be on set when we gave the script over. I’ve seen actors around me on other projects just throw the script out and do their own thing. So, we didn’t know what the process was going to be like. We have all these actors who have so many more credits that us, who have been around for a long time.
But that was the exact opposite of this process. They were so into the script and the specificity. If they had any questions, they would come to us. We had this great chat with Gia Carides, because she was very specific with the way things should be said. And a lot of conversations we had were really interesting and about linguistics. There were certain things Shayla would say that were more bogan, or how Shelley doesn’t know what an MLM is. And it’s not because she’s dumb, but because she believes in the good of the world. So, all of these interesting conversations about those specific words came up because of that.
Vic Zerbst: Yeah, it was just about taking an extra moment to have that conversation about what does feel real and what resonates. It’s that time and attention to detail that makes it feel really lived in.
Nick: Was the intention always for you both to play Shayla and Steph? And what was it like writing a character knowing you could bring your own nuances to them?
Vic Zerbst: I mean, superficially, you do feel like you want to make your characters interesting. Steph is a character that’s transitioning and moving through life. And she’s kind of the centre for all the other characters to play off. She is a bit of the ‘straight man’ character.
But for me, it was about what I wanted to get out of it. I wanted to wear an eyepatch. I wanted to have an interesting fashion moment. I want to have a moment where I kind of go crazy, and where I’m dancing in a car. I wanted to find what would be joyful for me as an actor.
When you see a lot of scripts, and there is this flatness, lack of detail, lack of joy, you just wonder who has written this? Because they’re not actually thinking of what’s fun or what’s exciting. I think playing the role you’re writing allows you to intentionally make it interesting and fun to play.
Jenna Owen: One thing Vic does amazingly is write Steph as someone who is not a person who knows exactly who they are. And you don’t get that sense from Vic. You get a sense from the character that they’re trying on different hats. They live in different worlds. They’re serious with their family, but silly and quirky with Seb. And I feel like Vic really capture the idea of someone who is going through that phase of life that we all go through.
It’s such a journey, and on my end, there’s the character, there’s their identity, there’s the person standing in their power. But at the start, she is frustrated by the fact that when she watches Steph, she thinks it’s pathetic, this act she puts on for people.
Nick: I’d be remised if I didn’t ask this, because this is, after all, a Christmas movie. Jenna mentioned earlier about putting this narrative in the Christmas movie formula, so I’m curious to know what the key elements you found necessary to give this movie that Christmas feeling?
Jenna Owen: Oh, good question.
Vic Zerbst: That’s a really great question. I think we were always trying to go for the unexpected choice. For Australia on Christmas, it was about the little things like the inflatable Kangaroo in a Santa hat. It’s just that little bit different, because we didn’t want to hit all the cliches. We’re always trying to find a way around the Christmas aesthetic that was unexpected. And again, it was taking that extra time, that extra bit of finessing. We definitely also wanted that coastal… chic?
Jenna Owen: Yeah, I would say that renovated coastal lifestyle. And I think the aesthetics and linguistics play a massive part in the film when it comes to landing those key moments. Like, just that feeling of the Wollongong’s, the south coasts, those houses that exist in every state in Australia. It’s got the Ikea furniture from that one trip the family made to Sydney. They went to Fantastic to get the recliners. That is the feeling we really wanted to get across.
Thank you so much to Vic and Jenna for their time, and to Stan Australia for organising the interview. Nugget Is Dead: A Christmas Story premieres November 21, only on Stan.
