Inventing Christmas with Nalluri and Stevens is no problem

Santa Claus wasn't the one who made Christmas the beloved holiday as it is treasured to today -- it was Charles Dickens who arguably wrote the best Christmas novel of all time, "A Christmas Carol." Director Bharat Nalluri and his leading actor Dan Stevens bring their yuletide cheer to BUILD Series to dish about their new film, "The Man Who Invented Christmas."

Since the film focuses on a 31-year-old Charles Dickens, Stevens begins discussing about the film's beginning. "You look at any one of his books and there are childish, silly, playful, and really fun episodes that go into really really dark, melodramatic, you now really tragic and his mood swings were pretty violent," says Stevens. "It was sort of fun to play with that in this very intense six week period of his life." "He had this burning ambition to write something that was socially relevant and had this universal human theme in it and it drove himself nearly mad." Nalluri adds to the testament, "Through making you laugh and cry, Dickens kind of delivered this subtext about what we should be to our fellow man or how we should treat people without hitting you over the head with a hammer and I think that was his true genius and thats why he has a lasting legacy."

When asked about how Stevens was intended to portray Dickens, Nalluri admits, "There is a fantastic portrait of Dickens in 1840 and he just looked like Dan. It was really nice to do a young kind of vibrant Dickens that no one has ever seen before." He goes on to complement Stevens by saying, "Dan makes it just feel effortless really. He makes it sound very easy but he puts a lot of work into it and he comes fully formed on set and as a director its a real pleasure."

In the film, Charles Dickens interacts with his infamous creation, Ebenezer Scrooge who is played by the legendary Christopher Plummer. The two passionately express their experience working with Plummer. "Working with Plummer was amazing. He was so witty, sharp, and just funny and all of that is in his Scrooge," says Stevens. Nalluri comments, "He was always the first person on the set. I used arrive and walk around the set to set up blocking, and then I turn around and Plummer was sitting in a chair in the corner like The Ghost of Christmas Past. We had a great time just talking about his past movies how those directors directed him. I was in film history heaven."

When asked about how he got tapped to direct the film, Nalluri answers, "Dickens was the man who invented Christmas for me because I came from a family that didn't celebrate Christmas. I never understood why all of my friends were having such a great time at Christmas in the north of England which is a big place for Christmas."

As he reflects on his childhood, Nalluri admits that at the age of eleven, he read "A Christmas Carol" for the first time. "Every time I read it, you understand more about the story. I've been trying to weave a Christmas Carol script into my life for a while."

Because of the film taking place at a specific moment of the author's life, the film features a lot of easter eggs to Dicken's previous work. Nalluri expresses that, "If you know your Dickens, you'll really love it. If you don't know your Dickens, it'll be inspiring. If anyone goes away and reads a Dickens book after this, then thats my job done. It's a very joyous movie."

'The Man Who Invented Christmas' is now playing in select theaters.