Seasonal SPIRIT!

WILL FERRELL and RYAN REYNOLDS on their feel-good festive musical

SPIRITED

FROM FRI 18 NOV, APPLE TV+ COMEDY

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… Or at least it will do on Friday 18 November, when Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds team up for a musical twist on Charles Dickens’ classic festive tale A Christmas Carol for glossy new Apple TV+ film Spirited.

‘Singing, dancing and playing in the sandbox with Will Ferrell – one of my comedy idols – made a whole lot of dreams come true,’ smiles Ryan (Free Guy, Red Notice), who plays Clint Briggs, the Ebenezer Scrooge-like character of this story.

Will, meanwhile, stars as the Ghost of Christmas Present, who every Christmas

Eve chooses one dark soul who he thinks is in desperate need of being made a better person

– the only difficulty this time is that he picks the wrong kind of Scrooge!

Clint turns the tables on his ghostly host, making Present re-examine his own past, present and future through numerous glitzy song-and-dance routines. And it was these big, toe-tapping numbers that appealed to both of the Hollywood leading men.

‘A musical was completely unthinkable and terrifying to me, and even three or four years ago I wouldn’t have had the courage to say yes to it,’ says Deadpool star Ryan, 46. ‘But both Will and I had time to invest in learning, in doing basically song-and-dance camp for several months before starting shooting. I love learning something new.’

As joyous as this modern-day retelling is, it pulls on the old heartstrings, too…

‘It’s really fun and there are great songs,’ says Will, 55, who also starred in Christmas film favourite Elf (2003). ‘But I also had moments of, “Wait, I’m crying in this, too?!”’