HOLIDAY HIJINKS

Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer sing and dance in a spirited new spin on A Christmas Carol and share their Christmases past and present with Parade.

hat happens when you cast three actors—with nearly 350 acting credits and one Oscar among them but little singing and dancing experience—in a musical? When it’s Will Ferrell, Octavia Spencer and Ryan Reynolds, you get the magic of Spirited, a Christmas comedy musical (debuting Nov. 18 on Apple TV+). The reimagining of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol is “from the ghosts’ perspective,” says Ferrell. He plays the ghost Present, who has his eye on Reynolds’ “unredeemable” character, a charismatic New York media consultant that Present calls “the perfect combination of Mussolini and [Ryan] Seacrest,” who will go to any lengths to manipulate the public. “[My character] doesn’t have the requisite scruples to understand that what he’s doing is wrong,” says Reynolds. And he has succeeded in part due to his righthand woman, Kimberly, played by Spencer, who is struggling with her boss’s ethics.

When director Sean Anders called Ferrell with the idea four years ago, the actor was intrigued. “Then [Sean] said, ‘Oh, and by the way, it’s a musical.’” Ferrell, 55, agreed, “but I got scared later when I saw the level of detail and all the stuff we would be doing.” Spencer, 52, says she found it “kind of stress-inducing, but extremely flattering” to hear the creators had written the part for her without even knowing if she could sing. “I can carry a tune from, like, here to the computer screen,” she tells Parade with a laugh. Reynolds, 46, remembers thinking that the chance “to

Wwork with Will was a pretty spectacular opportunity.”

And about that singing and dancing: Ferrell and Spencer won’t soon forget their first time singing together on camera. “There were lots of crew and people watching the scene, so it was a little intimidating,” says Ferrell. And when the director checked in and asked if there was anything his stars were worried about before the cameras rolled, Spencer said, “I’m worried about the singing! The singing!” But her stress dissipated after the first take. As for Ferrell, “All I had to do,” he says, “was to look into Octavia’s eyes, and we felt connected. It was very sweet and emotional.”

He had a different kind of experience with Reynolds in rehearsals for their dance segments. “We were both behind on the steps, just a little bit off, and Ryan commented that we looked like we were taking a dance class at a retirement community,” he recalls. Yeah, adds Reynolds, “like one of those exercise programs. Both Will and I got ‘the gigs,’ as we call it—the giggles—and it just never stopped. I mean, I don’t think we were able to catch our breath again for about an hour.”

Offscreen, Reynolds was relieved that “Will is not one of those people who’s terminally on,” he says. “He can kick into high gear,