‘Do not mess this up’

Meet Me Next Christmas is the first of Netflix’s holiday movie slate. The film stars Christina Milian as a hopeless romantic named Layla who has a meet-cute with a man named James (Kofi Siriboe) in an airport.

She’s in a relationship, but she agrees that if she’s single by next Christmas, they’ll meet at a Pentatonix concert in New York City. When the next holiday season rolls around, she gets cheated on and enlists the help of a concierge named Teddy (Devale Ellis) to help her nab tickets to the sold-out concert so she can meet James.

Naturally, as Layla and Teddy run kooky errands together, she starts to wonder which guy she truly has chemistry with.

Milan spoke with Yahoo Entertainment about becoming one of Netflix’s go-to rom-com stars, the movie’s dazzling lip-syncing performance and how this new holiday movie takes a turn that others don’t.

Warning: This article contains a Meet Me Next Christmas spoiler.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I know it’s not Thanksgiving yet, but are you in the holiday spirit?

Christina Milian: Definitely. The only thing is my family’s so far away. My husband and my kids are in Paris [where they all moved last year]. But I’m going to be finishing up a project that I’m filming right now called Dexter: Original Sin, then I’m flying back home. But I’m taking all my goodies — things I can’t find in Paris — whether it is cheese I need for my macaroni and cheese or stuffing. They don’t know about stuffing.

So, we get a fun batch of holiday movies every year from places like Hallmark, Netflix and Lifetime. Why do you think people are drawn to them?

Milian: People just love to feel good, even if it’s cheesy and even if you know what’s gonna happen. People love the holidays! It’s getting cold. You wanna be cozy. You wanna be in sweats and eat up all the food. It just feels good to laugh and be happy. Seasons change, so of course, in the summertime, you can feel “hot girl” and happy. The sun’s giving all this vitamin D. Then when winter comes and it’s gray, you gotta find a way to fight through that feeling. Christmas movies do that. And it’s passed through life — we pass it on to our family and kids … and we’re all little kids inside.

You have a system. So Meet Me Next Christmas is your third romantic comedy with Netflix. What a fun niche! How did you fall into that?

Milian: One of my first romantic comedies, Love Don’t Cost a Thing with Nick Cannon, really set the tone for the rest of the movies I’ve done in this field. It’s a classic now. You really feel for those characters. It was a remake of Can’t Buy Me Love, which is also a classic. I used to have people tell me, “You could be really great in romantic comedies!” I thought, that sounds really nice but I don’t throw all my eggs in one basket. I just let it flow. When the opportunity came to work with Netflix, I just couldn’t wait. Ever since Netflix came out, I wanted to do a movie with them. We always travel someplace — New Zealand, Mauritius and now Toronto. They all have magic — every single movie — and this time we’ve added some Christmas magic. This one is probably by far one of the most successful ones as well.

I love the scene where you do a lip-sync performance. How did you prepare for that?

Milian: We actually only rehearsed it like four times. Devale [Ellis] picked it up really fast, which was embarrassing for me because I had to catch up. But I learn something in one day, then I sleep on it, then the next day, I just slay it. That’s what I had to do to show him I could dance too … it’s fun to see this beefy, muscular guy in front of an audience like he doesn’t care. I love it when a guy is so confident he can be like that. That’s what’s special about [his character] Teddy — I think we need more of that. A [love interest] who is a true friend.

Pentatonix appears throughout the movie and plays a big role in one of the last scenes. What was it like working with them?

Milian: Oh, they’re great. I’ve gotten to know them a little more over time because a lot of my scenes were not with them. When we went to the screening, it was just fun … to hear them laugh and watch them see their characters and we had a good giggle. Yesterday I DM’d them all separately from the Pentatonix account and said, “Hi, I’m gonna be your friend.”

I’m obsessed with the dress that you wear to the concert at the end of the movie. Did you get to pick it out?

Milian: We actually made that dress. It was really difficult to find … but it finally came down to me going on Pinterest and finding a bunch of stuff that was comparable to what I actually wanted it to be. Then we had to find the right material — not too red, not too shiny. But we finally figured it out because that scene means so much. It’s the ultimate rom-com scene. Do not mess this up — it can’t be a bad dress! When we were editing the film, I was like, whatever you do, make sure we get to see that dress.

It’s so nice watching Teddy and Layla get together, but the movie also rebuffs a popular rom-com trope. The love interest who Layla doesn’t end up with, James, still has a happy ending.

Milian: James deserves a happy ending! He seems to be — well, he’s a smooth operator. But I honestly think James and Layla had a beautiful connection at the beginning of the movie that’s just like reading a romance novel over the course of two minutes. All we want is a bit of love. You hear him on the phone at the beginning talking to his nephew, and he’s like, “Uncle James is gonna be there, I’m coming!” So he’s a good guy too. We like him.

Meet Me Next Christmas is now streaming on Netflix.