Cutting a holiday movie together stuffed with pop-star self-parody, big musical numbers, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them celebrity cameos could’ve easily tipped into chaos, but A Very Jonas Christmas Movie never loses its footing. That’s largely thanks to editor Peter Hagan, who treated the film less like a run-of-the-mill Christmas comedy and more like a joyful road trip movie with heart. I caught up with Hagan to talk about the film’s pacing, letting jokes breathe, keeping sincerity intact amid the silliness, and why sometimes the smartest edit is knowing when to get out of the way.
JG: Watching A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, it kind of plays out like a bunch of mini-movies connected by one goal: getting the brothers home for Christmas. When you’re cutting something like that, how do you keep it feeling fun and cohesive without forcing everything into the same tone?
Peter Hagan: I think you’re right in picking up on the structure. You know, luckily, we had so many talented performers and so many wonderful cameos throughout. What they brought to each scene drove the tone and energy of the scenes and that’s what gave each one its unique feeling. And we were quite blessed to have an incredible cast. It started from a script that, when you read it, really stood out as a unique take on a Christmas film.
It was filled with surprises. So, the blueprint was there for a film that jumped tones and was filled with many adventures. I think our performers, from Will Ferrell to the Jonas brothers, having seen them in projects before that, I knew how talented they were and their natural chemistry. But I was pleasantly surprised at how willing and free they were to make fun of themselves, and I think that that was really key to the film.
As the editor, I had an abundance of riches from everything that I was given. And I felt like it was just my job to make sure it all ended up on screen in the best way possible.
JG: With so many big cameos popping in (Will Ferrell, Kenny G, Laverne Cox, etc), what’s the challenge in giving each guest their moment while still keeping the movie from feeling like a sketch show?
Peter Hagan: Yeah. The guest stars didn’t tend to overlap. But at the same time, the brothers really held it all together, because they were the constant throughout. The story is grounded in the goal of getting home.
In some ways, it sort of plays like a road trip film. In road trip films, you tend to have people who show up, and you’re travelling. Like with the natural rhythm of a trip, it always leads you to encountering different people along the way. The built-in aspect of travel made it so that the cameos made sense, like you are meeting different people along the way in a natural way. As opposed to a series of sketches, where perhaps if you were in the same location and different people started showing up, that wouldn’t feel as natural. I think the travel aspect helped us in that regard.
JG: Each musical number feels totally distinct from the next. Was that a conscious choice early on, or did you discover the right vibe for each song as you were cutting the movie together?
Peter Hagan: A little bit of both. I know that Jessica Yu, our director and Jamal Sims, our choreographer, went to great lengths to give each number its own sort of style. The first one, “Best Night,” is kind of like a music video. “Coming Home for Christmas” is kind of a classical production number. And some of the others feel more like music videos. So there was a lot of planning that went into making them different, but at the same time, there was a sort of finding the rhythm and the feel for the songs in the edit.
In many cases, the full version of the song that’s on the album is not in the film for various reasons. Finding the structure of each song was something that we explored in the edit. The song that Joe sings with Chloe Bennet in Amsterdam, the edit of the song that appears in the film, is quite different than the structure of the song itself. For various style and pacing reasons, it turned out that way. I think that’s fairly typical. A lot of planning, you know, but also some discovery in the edit.
JG: The movie balances being very self-aware with having a real holiday heart at its core. When you’re editing, how do you know when to pull back so things don’t get too sentimental or too jokey?
Peter Hagan: I think it goes back to the script. You know, that sort of self-aware quality was baked into a lot of the humor that’s in the script. I think for me, an important thing when working on performance is that, regardless of the tone or the genre of film, you’re looking for performances where the actors are being honest. Where they’re most themselves, and they’re able to bring the way that they are in real life to the character.
I call that honesty. Where they’re falling into themselves, as opposed to putting on a character. And you can sort of detect that when you’re reviewing stuff. Something that feels real to me is always gonna be the performance to go for. With the self-aware stuff, we didn’t make an extra effort to draw attention to that or to the sentimentality. I think you can be sentimental in a way that’s honest, then it doesn’t come off as being cheesy or corny. It comes off as being heartfelt.
For the brothers, it was very easy for them to do this. They bring a lot of heart to everything that they do. That is who they are. They really love their work, and so the sentiment felt true because that’s who they are themselves.
JG: Looking back now, is there one scene that maybe stands out in particular for you, that kind of best sums up, like, that honesty and kind of, like, really capturing that kind of real feeling?
Peter Hagan: I mean, there’s a number of them. I think the wolf scene stands out because what’s funny about that scene is that they’re screaming at each other, and the stakes are heightened. I think that’s their sense of humor, that heightened sense of reality. They’re saying real things to each other, you know what I mean? In that moment of that very heightened humour, they’re expressing real feelings that they have for each other. I think that’s very much them.
Maybe that isn’t the most obvious one, because they’re facing wolves, you know? It’s a somewhat ridiculous sequence, but I think in many ways it captures the self-aware tone, the sentiment, and the humor all in that particular scene.
JG: Lastly, what’s next? What can we look forward to you editing?
Peter Hagan: Well, I continued collaborating with Jessica. After that project, she and I were just in Italy for an extended run. We’re doing a project for Amazon Italy. It’s called Postcards from Italy. And we’re editing it right now. We’re in the midst of cuts with Amazon. I’m very excited about it. It’s got a strong international cast, beautiful locations in Sicily, so excited for that to be coming out soon.
You can still catch a Very Jonas Christmas Movie on Disney+.