Christmas is literally right around the corner, and there is no better way to get into the holiday spirit than by sitting down with your loved ones to check out the latest romcoms our favorite networks have to offer.
This year, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network is bringing back their annual OWN For the Holidays programming event with three new holiday movies, which promise to “celebrate the true meaning of the season by putting love, friends and family first,” according to a press release. Today, Celeb Secrets is giving you the scoop on what to expect from A Season to Remember, the first of three flicks.
Starring Michele Weaver and Nathan Owens, this holiday film sees Symone (Weaver) a career-driven sports reporter navigating the pressures working in a male-dominated field. Just days before Christmas, she teams up with Iggy (Owens), a cameraman, to uncover an eye-catching story. As the holiday season sets the stage, both characters find themselves growing—not only professionally, but personally—through their unexpected partnership.
The film is brimming with self-empowerment, courage, romance, and the two sat down with Celeb Secrets writer Brianna Vacca to discuss their roles and the role the holidays play in their overall character development over the course of the film.
Weaver confesses, “The holidays always creates a pressure. One, it’s the end of the year and there’s deadlines and you want to meet your goals. So I think it’s great context for the film in the sense that not only love comes up during the holidays, but there’s also this pressure professionally where she wants to meet these certain goals. Symone Gibson, my character, as she teams up with Iggy, you know there’s pressure to reach a new level professionally and there’s that extra pressure of time.”
Owens adds, “I’d say for my character personally, he’s not quite used to family that Michele’s character is used to. I don’t want to give much away but it’s nice that she brings him into a larger family.”
Both Weaver and Owens shared that their experiences while making A Season to Remember were deeply transformative, not just as actors, but on a personal level as well. Weaver, who juggles her career with motherhood, reflected on the challenges of balancing both worlds.
“I have learned a lot on this film, not necessarily personally, but just as an actor. There were a lot of things that I was like, you know what, I want to set myself up better in the future. This is my second film after being a mom, so there’s certain things as a mom with a really young child where it’s kind of hard to separate and be able to really focus on my job but also take care of my kid, right? So there were things as a mom, a working mom, that I learned how to better set myself up to succeed better.”
Owens chimed in with something of a similar vein emphasizing the need for resilience needed for acting, “I would piggyback on that as well. A lot of the world as an actor is a lot of traveling and becoming acclimated to wherever you have to be by yourself, alone in a hotel or wherever it is, just understanding what life brings and how to navigate that and how to keep the drive and energy throughout the whole production. Stuff like that you have to maintain because you have long days sometimes, long days and long nights. So you have to hone in on your personal strength and it tests your mental fortitude.”
What do they hope people are able to take away after watching the film? “Self-powerment,” Weaver says.
“I hope people leave encouraged and full of faith and empowered to go after things that they thought they couldn’t go offer. I hope people are encouraged to advocate for themselves. There’s a difference between advocating for yourself and taking the chance to figure that out for yourself. Hopefully people see that power of starting inside first.”
For Owens, being yourself and bearing vulnerability that comes with love is his biggest takeaway.
“For me, it’s the vulnerability that comes with love and relationships and giving yourself the courage to be vulnerable in a relationship, any relationship,” he says.
For more on A Season To Remember, watch our full interview with Nathan and Michele below. Don’t forget to catch the big premiere TONIGHT, December 7th @ 9PM ET/PT on OWN and streaming on MAX.
WATCH THE TRAILER FOR “A SEASON TO REMEMBER” HERE:
