“Are strippers not the first thing that come to mind when you think about Christmas?” Chad Michael Murray jokes.
Truth be told, sitting down with the star of Netflix’s raunchy new holiday rom-com at the decked-out Plaza Hotel feels like something out of a rom-com itself. It doesn’t hurt that Murray—a former teen heartthrob who dominated early-aughts shows like Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill, as well as movies like Freaky Friday and A Cinderella Story—is, frankly, as charming as ever at 43. It’s hard not to smile when the married father of three immediately makes a dad joke about seeing Kevin McCallister running around the hotel’s elaborately decorated lobby. But today, we’re here to discuss a film that makes Home Alone 2 look like, well, child’s play.
In what can only be described as the Magic Mike of Christmas movies, The Merry Gentlemen (now streaming) stars Murray as Luke, a helpful contractor who agrees to appear in an all-male dance revue to save his small town’s mom-and-pop performance venue—and, naturally, to woo the owners’ professional dancer daughter, Ashley (Britt Robertson). From the moment he read the Sycamore Falls-set script, Murray was hooked. “I saw the opportunity to do something that I’d never seen done before,” he says of signing on for the steamy holiday flick. “My wife was scared, though. She was like, ‘What are you making and how much of you are we seeing?’”
In case you were wondering, the film only goes so far as shirtless stripteases (sorry to disappoint). But early rehearsals had the titular Merry Gentlemen showing much more skin. “Our original outfits were spandex and far smaller—like little mankinis,” says Murray, who’s dressed far more conservatively today in a houndstooth bomber jacket with matching pants and a white tee. “They were bejeweled, and some even had lights. Our director, Peter Sullivan, came in one day and said, ‘Guys, this can’t be a holiday film when they’re running around in that.’”
Turning a Christmas movie into a hip-thrusting spectacular was a delicate dance in itself. “You have to thread the needle between Magic Mike and a holiday film,” says Murray. “If you go too far, it’s not going to work. We don’t need grandma walking into the room, asking what you’re watching, and keeling over. It needs to be okay to have on in the background without getting judged for it, and we made a feel-good film with some spiciness. There’s so much going on in this current climate that I really feel we could use this particular genre.”
When asked how one researches for such a role, Murray laughs. “I think everyone wants me to say that we all went to Vegas to see Thunder Down Under,” he says. “I actually met the Chippendales in Vegas years ago and was asked to do a guest spot. I thought it would have been hysterical, but I didn't do it.” (He’s not ruling out any future appearances, though: “The thought has definitely crossed my mind,” he says). So, how did he prepare? “I might have peeked at Magic Mike,” he says. “I was like, ‘I can’t do that.’ The talent of Channing [Tatum] alone, it’s unbelievable. That kind of control would take me years—and I’m still not sure I’d get there.”
He certainly didn’t have years to learn his routines for The Merry Gentlemen. Three weeks before his professionally trained co-stars started rehearsals, Murray began taking six-hour lessons, four times a week. “The idea of dancing scared the crap out of me,” he says. “It’s not that I don’t dance: I do, at weddings and at home. I love to dance for fun. But I’d never done any choreography.”
To prep for the film’s ab-heavy themed performances, Murray had to learn dance styles from country western to hip-hop. But one move remained constant. “There were a lot of body rolls,” he says, adding, “I do them all the time now.” Much to the actor’s amusement, his kids—who are nine, seven, and one—started emulating one of his less-risqué moves. “My wife, Sarah, and I were watching the film and our daughter walked in, looked at the screen, and said, ‘What are you doing, Daddy? Put your shirt on!’ She got so fussy with me and told my son what I was doing—she thought it was the worm, but it was not. Now they always do the worm.”
Parenthood itself has changed the way that Murray selects his roles. “There’s a levity to the choices I’ve been making,” he says. “When my first son was born, I did a very dark project called Outlaws and Angels. [In the 2016 western, Murray played a violent hostage-taking fugitive.] “That movie stuck with me for about a month. It was really tough to shake, and I knew I had to find a way to divide [work from my home life]. I like doing lighter fare, and I really like going to bed every night without carrying that extra weight.”
“When my kids are older, that may change,” he continues. “At that point, I’ll find some cool indies or psychological thrillers and make different choices. But right now, I just want to have the normal trials and tribulations of life—and I can still put out a lot of good stories where my kids don't have to go to school and hear, ‘What did your dad just do?’ The Merry Gentlemen is on the brink, but I think it’s still okay.”
At one point in the film, Murray’s contractor character is told that he gives off “Hallmark handyman vibes.” It’s a notably tongue-in-cheek reference, since Murray has starred in a handful of Hallmark holiday films and currently portrays yet another handyman in the Canadian series Sullivan’s Crossing. Perhaps it’s a case of art imitating life. “I’m actually pretty handy,” he says. “I grew up impoverished, and when you don’t have a lot of money, you have to figure things out and adapt. My dad would fix the water heater when it went out in the middle of the winter, and we’d sleep in jackets and open the oven for heat when it was freezing outside. We reroofed the house and replaced the garage door ourselves, too.”
Murray has certainly come a long way since his Buffalo upbringing. Now, his own garage is home to one of the Teen Choice Awards that he won in 2004 (the iconic surfboard is displayed on the ceiling). While he says he “wouldn’t change a thing” that led him to where he is today, it’s been a transformative two decades since he swept the Breakout Actor categories across film and TV. “I’ve learned more since turning 40 than I did in the previous 20 years,” he says. “Both about this industry and about life.”
For the upcoming Freaky Friday sequel, Murray turned back the clock to revisit a character he hadn’t played since the millennium. In Freakier Friday, he reprises his role as Jake, the love interest of Lindsay Lohan’s character, Anna; while he won’t tease the plot itself, he’ll gush about reuniting with Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis on set. “It's such a nostalgia kick,” he says. “It felt like no time had passed, even though we all had lives in the 23 years from set to set. I do have a pretty meaty monologue that was nowhere in the actual script, and I hope it turns out to be epic.”
![lindsay lohan and chad michael murray](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/chad-michael-murray-and-lindsay-lohan-arriving-at-the-world-news-photo-1732130559.jpg?resize=980:* "The World premiere of "The Santa Clause 2"")
Curtis, for one, has been singing Murray’s praises to the press. “Jamie is just first-class all around,” he says. “I obviously embrace that relationship, and I’m so grateful to her.” Re-teaming with Lohan was especially fortuitous: She also stars in a Netflix holiday movie this year, and the pair found themselves featured in the same festive teaser clip and on overlapping press tours. “I’m seeing her at an event tomorrow, actually,” says Murray. “It’s crazy, but the timing couldn’t be better. I’ve met her little boy and her husband, and it felt so good to have that full circle moment. And she freaking crushes it in the movie—just wait.”
As he reprises one famous role, fans are hoping that he’ll consider another: Lucas Scott in One Tree Hill. Amid news of a series reboot—helmed by Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton—Murray has remained tight-lipped about a potential return. “I hope the show comes back because of every single person that I run into,” he says. “It continues to grow, and it still hits home. People talk about the school shooting episode all the time; I’ll never forget how my mouth hit the floor when we first read that script, and it still gives me goosebumps to look back on it now. There’s just this connective tissue that binds all of us, and I hope that a new iteration does come together so that the fans can get something new in the world of Tree Hill.”
Lucas Scott was top of mind for Murray while filming The Merry Gentlemen. So much so, he had a hand in naming his character, Luke. “There’s definitely a wink and a nod there,” he says. “His original name was, like, Bob, and I said, ‘This guy is not Bob.’ They asked what I thought his name should be; I felt like he could be a Luke. The name itself means ‘light,’ which has been my goal lately—to try to bring light. And that’s what Luke does—he brings light to this town. It was kismet.”
Another name that Murray often hears from fans? That of his character from the 2004 blockbuster, A Cinderella Story. “People bring up Austin Ames all the time, and I would love to revisit him,” he says. “I feel like we see a lot of films with an unrealistic conclusion, where all of a sudden it's a happily ever after. But as [Hilary Duff’s character] Sam says at the end of the movie, she’s only in high school. What if it didn’t work out between her and Austin? Maybe they went their separate ways in college, she got married and had kids, and he went off to be a writer, which didn't work out. Now he’s a high school English teacher and he has to revisit this whole thing because her daughter is in his class. I could come up with ten more versions, but to revisit that movie would be a total nostalgia fest for so many romantics out there.”
At the suggestion that a sequel to that fan-favorite could follow Freakier Friday, Murray lights up. “From your mouth to God’s ears,” he says, proudly adding that A Cinderella Story was the first movie that his daughter ever watched. With that, he slings a backpack over his shoulders, opens the Mr. Softee app on his phone, and is off to track down an ice cream truck with his kids in Central Park. He just has one more accomplishment to show off on his way out: It’s a sexy, shirtless 12-month calendar that he made with Netflix, the proceeds of which will benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. It’s just further proof that, if anyone can strike the balance between family-friendly and NSFW, it’s Murray. He did turn a stripper movie into a sweet Christmas rom-com, after all.
Samantha Simon is a writer, editor, and pop culture enthusiast living in New York City. She previously served as Features Editor at InStyle. If she’s not in the middle of a Law & Order: SVU marathon, she’s probably on a 4-mile walk with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Dexter (named after the fictional vigilante serial killer, naturally), shopping, or searching for the best cacio e pepe that the city has to offer. Her favorite topics include celebrity memoirs, emo bands of the early aughts, and the weekly Sakara Life menu.
