Pop icon Mariah Carey had a fireside chat to celebrate her animated movie All I Want For Christmas is You with cuddly adoptable puppies, gingerbread house building, warm cocoa and real snow sledding.
The animated family film based on Mariah Carey’s hit song All I Want for Christmas is You will be arriving just in time for the holidays. Taking inspiration from the 2015 children’s book that used the lyrics of the hit song to tell the story of little Mariah, whose ultimate wish is to get a puppy for Christmas, the film brings the story to life as a new holiday tradition. Along with the real Mariah Carey serving as the narrator, Breanna Yde stars as little Mariah with Lacey Chabert and Henry Winkler rounding out the cast.
Mariah Carey recently talked about the film with press during a special holiday party to celebrate the release of the film which she executive produced, narrated, and includes some of her holidays classics. The legendary singer-songwriter enthusiastically chatted with us about the movie and her love for the holidays.
Question: From the release of the single, to the book and now this adaptation, what are some of the Mariah touches you wanted to make sure ended up in the movie?
- Mariah Carey: I wanted people to give their perspective on the picture because the puppy is almost a metaphor for the unconditional love that animals can give and that’s something from when I was a little girl that I always felt. It’s not just about a dog or a cat or anything like that. It’s love and it’s a universal topic. I’m not a philosopher, I’m just somebody that loves Christmas and now we have a Christmas movie to go with my Christmas song. The song itself inspired the book, it wasn’t the outline for the movie. I think everybody that was involved kind of contributed something to the final product. I’m just thankful for the song. As a songwriter it’s a gift to receive something like that so to be able to share it with the world is something that I’m very proud of.
Q: How did the journey from song to book to movie happen?
- Mariah Carey: Well the children’s book, it’s really the lyrics to the song and then it’s animated. The image of me as a cartoon character is from the Heartbreaker video and so they took that girl and made her into a little girl to make her into this children’s book. The original character was a caricature of me and then we took that girl and made her a child version of me. Then it became a children’s book with the same lyrics as the song. It just inspired the concept to do an animated movie.
Little Mariah and friends have Holiday fun surrounded by the Christmas spirit
Q: What are you most looking forward to having kids around the world be most inspired by from Little Mariah?
- Mariah Carey: Hopefully the innocence. I was inspired by (Breanna’s) talent and it was great because I helped produced her version of my song which she sings in the movie. My version is at the end of the movie. She was great and we had such a great experience in the studio. I love to produce music and she was a total professional.
Q: Did you think it would have the cultural impact to spawn the book and the movie?
- Mariah Carey: I was just writing, I wasn’t thinking--I was in the moment trying to get in the Christmas spirit. There’s two movie’s I’m working on, the other movie is called The Star and they called me to write for that. I took my twins to see that. They loved it. They called me to write the theme song, I wanted to work with this guy named Mark, who I’ve worked with on a couple other Christmas songs. It’s the story of the first Christmas, it’s told through the perspective of the animals like the three wise men's camels. There’s different characters and they’re animals. And so my kids really loved the movie and the spirit of it is something that’s so nice to watch, it’s not jarring--it’s really good. My kids are actually singing background vocals on the song “The Star” with me. It’s my twins and my friend’s son singing the line, “Follow your heart it’s Christmas”. They really enjoyed it, if they didn’t want to do it I would tell them they don’t have to. That’s fine with me, it’s up to them to decide who they wanna be as people.
Little Mariah writes to Santa her Christmas wish
Q: So you said that the theme of the movie is love and that the puppy represents love. What is it that you need around you during Christmas that fills you with that Christmas spirit?
- Mariah Carey: I love my family first, my kids first and they’re amazing. There’s Santa every year, even some reindeer. It’s like a production. Even before the twins were born, I would do this for my friends and their families and their kids so that they would grow up with these traditions and things we like to do during the holidays. I think it’s because when I was growing up I wanted to have like this picture perfect Christmas but really it’s the spirit that matters the most.
Q: Do you and your loved ones curl up and watch movies like this? Are there must-see Christmas movie staples screened?
- Mariah Carey: It’s a Wonderful Life is a classic, Miracle on 34th Street, there’s so many. We could watch the The Grinch. My mom was the one who got me into watching Christmas movie and having that as a tradition every year. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Christmas Story--all those movies make me happy and just remind me that every year I would look forward to that.
Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital and On Demand!
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