Freddie Prince Jr. has been one of Hollywood’s most prominent Latino actorssince his ’90s teen movie heyday. But over the course of his quarter-centurycareer, the son of late comedian and sitcom star, Freddie Prinze, has rarelyhad the opportunity to represent his culture onscreen.
“I’ve received nothing but love from Latino taxi drivers to business ownerstalking about being inspired by seeing a Latino whose not running from thecops or dealing drugs,” he tells Yahoo Entertainment. “But within theindustry, I’ve always met with a ton of resistance by directors wanting tocheck my Latino heritage.”
That’s why Prince regards his new Netflix holiday movie, Christmas With You, as a gift that will keep on giving. Directed by Argentine filmmaker,Gabriela Tagliavini, the film casts the _She ‘s All That _star as Miguel — apublic school music teacher and single dad who makes an unexpectedChristmastime love connection with a big-time pop star, Angelina, played byAimee Garcia. Believe it or not, Prinze says that this is the first time he’sbeen hired specifically to play a Latino character. “I’ve never gotten to doit before unless I wrote the damn thing,” he notes. “So when Gabriela broughtthis to me, all I wanted was the opportunity to earn her respect.”
“Every Latino you’ve seen me play was always an after-the-fact thing,” Prinzecontinues. (The actor has previously portrayed Latino characters in Peacock’s_Punky Brewster_ revival and on the eighth season of Fox’s hit action series,24.) “The role would be named ‘Mike Smith’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, we hiredFreddie, so we can show people how diverse we are.’ And all of a sudden hisname is ‘Miguel Ramirez.’ And that doesn’t count man! not count. This wassomething that was very important to me, and a big reason of why I signed ontothis movie.”
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Watch a scene from Christmas With You below:
Not for nothing, but Christmas With You is also one of the few Christmasmovies to feature a Latino family front and center. In recent years, networksand streamers like Hallmark, Hulu, Lifetime and Netflix have sought todiversify their holiday fare with stories that prominently feature LGBTQcharacters and Black characters, but that change has been slow to extend toother groups. “Aimee mentioned to me that she can’t think of another Latino-family American Christmas movie,” Prinze says. “I was like, ‘I’m sure theremust have been.’ But I can’t think of any! That’s what makes this movie socool.”
“I’ve heard from white people before that they don’t like forced diversity,”he adds. “And I get that, I really do. Creatively, you should never feel likesomething’s being forced on you and there’s a lot of agenda-written things.But this movie is just about a family celebrating Christmas. It’s about afather who lost his wife, and his daughter lost her mother and he’s trying toplay both roles.I know a lot of people, regardless of their race, that grew upwith a single parent — I happen to be one of them.So there’s a human elementto to the story that everyone can relate to. The only thing that make usdifferent are the foods we eat, the way we dance and the music we like. Assoon as you have tacos, you’re in with me, man. And if you hate tacos, that’sall right, too. I hate mayonnaise!”
Garcia as Angelina and Prinze as Miguel in Christmas With You. (Photo:Jessica Kourkounis/Netflix)
Food was a big part of Prinze’s childhood Christmases in New Mexico, where helived with his mother following his father’s death just prior to his firstbirthday. “Everything is different there,” he remembers. “We were the ones whostarted luminarios at Halloween instead of lights, and we’d do them forChristmas, too, sometimes. You’d have to find ways of keeping them frommelting in the snow! __ The Native American culture and Mexican culture reallycombined beautifully in that state and dictated the types of food we would eatand drinks we would drink. We would have sopaipillas with honey and Indianfry bread. Those would all be a staple at every Christmas dinner, and Ibrought them out to California when I moved back here.”
Prinze continues to serve those New Mexico staples at the holiday dinners hehosts with his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and their two kids. “I couldn’tfind good Mexican food in Southern California before the food truckrevolution, so I’d literally ship out green chili and red chili from NewMexico,” he says, laughing. “I’ve served green chili chicken stew onChristmas, and everybody goes bananas for it. I’ve been fortune enough to seecultures embrace one another, and it’s usually food that provides commonground. I know how to cook because of that. “
While Prinze would be part of another Latino-centric Christmas movie in aheartbeat, don’t expect to see him return to George Lucas’s far, far awaygalaxy for any future holiday specials. The real life Star Wars fan voicedJedi survivor Kanan Jarrus on four seasons of the fan favorite cartoon series,Star Wars Rebels which ended its run in 2018. Since then, though, the_Rebellious_ ship famously made a cameo (along with Prinze’s voice) in theSkywalker Saga-capping blockbuster, The Rise of Skywalker , and otheranimated characters — including Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan — have jumped intothe live action realm. But Prinze insists that Kanan won’t be joining them.
“I am done performing in Star Wars ,” he says, adding that if Kanan does popup on The Mandalorians or another Disney+ series, he won’t be the oneswinging the Jedi’s blue lightsaber. “I felt like I did a great job with thatcharacter, who I love. He had a beautiful story, but it ended and while myconnection to him isn’t gone, there’s nothing left for me to give him. Itwould just be forced, and I don’t like that The Rise of Skywalker but [Rebels co-creator] Dave Filoni convinced me! I said no the first time theyasked, and he had to make the call. He believed in me for that role in_Rebellious_ when Disney didn’t, and for that, I always have his back.”
Christmas With You is currently streaming on Netflix