Director Mike Rohl on Crafting Netflix’s Feel-Good Christmas Hit 'My Secret Santa'

Picture Credits: Netflix / Getty Images

My Secret Santa is currently nestled comfortably in Netflix’s Top 10 movies. Unsurprisingly, given its easy holiday charm, which isn’t easy at all to pull off. Just ask its filmmaker, Mike Rohl, a director with a wide range of experience as well as a calling to make Christmas movies. He’s the same filmmaker behind the massively successful The Princess Switch movies.

We spoke with Rohl as he was already in production on another movie. Together, he and his crew work fast in Canada, where they actually shot winter for My Secret Santa. It lends some authenticity to the feel-good Christmas story, which sees Alexandra Breckenridge (Virgin River) donning an alter ego and playing Santa Claus at a luxury hotel where she falls for the owner’s son, Matthew Layne (Ryan Eggold).

With his background in improv comedy, as well as his work ethic from high-speed television productions like Smallville and Supernatural, Rohl brings vast experience to his Christmas movies. No wonder they connect with audiences.

What are some of the first conversations you have with [your cinematographer] Mike for a movie like My Secret Santa? How do you want to paint a Christmas story?

First of all, we get consensus on the story, what the goal is as far as the emotional moral message and the emotional train that we go down. We just sit down over a cup of coffee and go, well, what can we do that’s a little different given time and the scope of the movie? What can we do? We would say, whenever we can, “We’ll see the spaces and then see the faces.” So that means a super-wide epic shot. And then you get to the money – Alexandra and Ryan— that’s where it all happens and the eyes are there.

And that’s kind of it. Keep the camera moving when we can. Just try to make it visually exciting. And then that definitely goes in tandem with our production designer, Brian Cain, who fills the sets up with his set decorator just to make sure we have lovely Christmas backgrounds all the time.

I like that direct motto: see the spaces, see the faces.

I’ll admit, I borrowed the phrase from a friend of mine named Greg Beeman, who was the executive producer on Smallville. I did several episodes of Smallville, and one of the things he said was, “Michael, see the spaces and see the faces,” which was the general rule.

The connection that the actors have, that’s ultimately the place you want to go. A portion of my directing obviously is on the technical side and the shot-making, but a large part of it is those quiet moments with the actors where we’re getting to the nitty-gritty of exactly what the goals are of each scene. And then the red thread, as I call it, is the message that goes all the way through from the beginning to the end.

When you’re working with actors like Alexandra and Ryan, or anyone else playing people falling in love over the holidays, what qualities do you look for in chemistry? When do you know romance clicks?

You can see it right away. They already knew each other. They had done a show about a decade ago, and since then have been friends. And so, I had an idea that there would probably be some magic there.

We did a chemistry read, and they read the lines, and it was very playful. Right at that point there, I knew that it was going to be a good connection. Sure enough, they’re both stellar actors, not just on the comedy side of things but drama as well. I had supreme confidence that they could pull it off, and they did.

You mentioned you’d talk about movies you love with your crew, the kind you want to emulate. What about classic screwball comedies? Do they influence how you approach My Secret Santa?

Absolutely. Comedy and pathos, I find, is a really awesome blend, and you pull it up to whatever degree you’re in. I love movies where it’s funny and can be very soulful. I love those kinds of movies.

When I first got into this business, I was an improv comic. I worked in nightclubs and theaters as an improv guy. And so my background, even before film school, was comedy. I’m directing part of the day, and then I’m just screwing around the rest of the day trying to make people laugh. So when I get to put it on film, I’ll do that. I’m always looking for, in the comedies, that exit a little bit that we can add to give it a little more aesthetic flavor.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 06: (L-R) Howard Braunstein, Alexander Braunstein, Ryan Eggold, Tia Mowry, Alexandra Breckenridge, Madison MacIsaac and Diana-Maria Riva attend Netflix’s “My Secret Santa” LA screening at Netflix Roma Theater on November 06, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Netflix)

How does your improv background play into a scene where Taylor is running out of the bathroom and changing into Santa?

It’s just those tiny little moments that kind of elevate the comedy. You follow the actor. If Alex has got the idea she did, just let it go. And so the running, the grabbing the shoes, and just the scenes where she had to make excuses to leave — with the eyeball, the contact. Light physical comedy was encouraged. When you open the door for the actors to do it, nine times out of ten, they’ll just do it themselves. I don’t have to feed them anything.

How was working with the makeup team creating her, let’s say, alter ego? It’s convincing, but I imagine one wrong design idea, it could come off horrifying or unbelievable.

I’m glad you said that. That’s something we wanted to take a lot of care with. We have one of our favorite prosthetics guys here in Vancouver. His name’s Todd Masters, MastersFX, and he’s been doing it for so long. His credit list is miles long. He came in and talked about Santa Claus, made some sketches, and talked about it a lot, and it was going along very, very nicely. And then we got this sort of AI version of it. We use AI a lot to simulate things now. There was one that came out where I thought, there’s something about this that’s not quite right. I realized it was the nose.

We were using Alex’s beautiful nose, and I said, “Todd, you know what it is? She needs a button nose, just like the Christmas mythology. She needs a little round nose.” And so once they formed that up and put it on her, Alex put it on and she reacted screaming with laughter: “Look at my nose.” That was the chocolate on the cappuccino, you might say, that fixed it all. I was really impressed. We had our two prosthetics technicians with us on set all the time, always making sure it was perfect. And with HD cameras these days, I think it stood up really, really well.

Like Mrs. Doubtfire, Taylor has a sibling in the movie business, doing makeup effects. We see his home and it’s full of monsters. How did you want to make that authentic space for horror in a Christmas movie?

Well, I’m glad you said that too. Yeah, it was one of the little textures that Ron Oliver had written in and Carly had written into the script, that the couple were horror movie guys. They’re really into it. We managed to find some stuff around the wolf mask that actually came from Todd Masters. He loaned us a lot of his maquettes and a lot of his stuff that he uses when he makes his monster movie creations. Between that and the posters and the 3D picture, I think it came together pretty well.

Do you think it was a missed opportunity for Netflix, though, not to promote “My Secret Santa from the co-writer of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II”?

Yes, absolutely. A totally missed opportunity. What were they thinking?

Sorry, I had to say it.

Yeah, no, I don’t blame you.

Why aren’t there more Halloween-themed love stories?

I’ve heard of them. I definitely have heard of them. I know that there was one floating around after The Princess Switch. There was a thought of making a Halloween love story because Vanessa [Hudgens] is really into Halloween. That’s her favorite holiday. The idea might still be floating around somewhere, but it would be interesting. I’d love to see that.

You two did good work together with The Princess Switch movies. What makes that collaboration tick?

We got along right from day one really, really, really well. Like I said, when I’m on set and when I’m working, I like to keep people laughing and I like to keep it light and fun because it’s high stakes. She, by her nature, is one of the sweetest, most loving, funniest people I’ve ever met. Her mom — we called her Mama G — would be there on set with her. And she’s a great leader of a set, leader of a cast, just with her energy and her dedication.

And so we just got along. It was this lucky kind of chemistry that came along. In fact, all the cast members on that show, every once in a while you come across a cast that’s just unified. With all three of those movies, definitely that was the case.

I think it was number three that was shot during COVID, so we were actually in a hotel in Scotland. We got closer and closer and closer and had so much fun together. Vanessa is the life of the party. Her birthday’s in December, just like me, so we had birthday parties within days of each other. It was great.

Well, I do hope you both make a Halloween love story. I do think there’s an audience for it.

Oh, good. I’m glad you said that. I’ll have to email her and remind her of it and maybe talk to some producers I know—and who knows? We’ll see.

Please make that happen. As someone who’s made a lot of Christmas movies, what did you connect with in Ron and Carly’s script for My Secret Santa?

The love story was there. It was the twist. Obviously, for me, it was the reverse Mrs. Doubtfire—the whole idea of a woman running into a man that turns into Santa. It was a unique twist on the love story genre. I loved it because that meant there were going to be scenes with secrets, where you’re talking to each other but you don’t really know who the other person is. I thought Ron and Carly executed that very well.

Ron himself is super experienced and a very talented director and has directed, God, dozens and dozens and dozens of movies. And so I trusted his instinct on structure. Heart and soul, Carly brought to it — that intimacy and specialness. I just felt it when I read it. I thought, okay, this will work. This is a great combo and a great take on a classic Christmas love story. I think the audience is reacting to it and responding well.

What drew you as a director to Christmas movies?

Geez, you know what? I think it wasn’t anything where I went, “Listen, you should be directing Christmas movies.” I never said that to myself. What it was, I think there was a bit of an ascendancy in the business here in Vancouver, especially where Hallmark started doing Christmas movies. We were really starting to bring on these holiday kinds of films.

I think I just found myself being invited into the process: “Hey, we want to do this movie, and it’s a Christmas movie.” At that time I’d loved doing a lot of genres, like Supernatural and Eureka and Primeval, all these sort of darker, Boogeyman shows. I was probably looking for a little bit of a change. And so when they came along, it was refreshing. Rom-coms are refreshing because you get to deal more with tearjerker moments and happy moments. It’s nice, and I still love it.

What are some of the other ingredients involved in making an appealing Christmas movie? It’s a time of year of big and broad colors, good and bad taste, but how do you land on good taste with your team?

I guess that’s sort of subjective, but for me, remember when you were a kid and you’d get up earlier in the morning and maybe your parents were still asleep, and you’d go and plug the tree in and sit there? It’s the colors, it’s the smells, it’s that feeling of the multicolored lights and the twinkling and just the ambience of Christmas that, for me anyway, is half the fond memories of growing up.

When I make the movies, especially on the last two Switch movies, the last two in particular, we went nuts. We went overboard with stuffing the sets with lots and lots of Christmas decorations. And if you see some of the shots in those two movies, I mean, man, the production designer, Pat Campbell, I loved it. Because people love looking at Christmas that much.

It’s just the time of year to celebrate and enjoy that ambience. If you don’t do it enough, if there are blank spaces and it’s a little thin, it’s probably not as satisfying and as warm and cozy and inviting as one that takes the actors and just puts them in this world.

It’s all about worlds. There’s sci-fi world, there’s horror world, there’s fantasy world, and this is probably a combination of fantasy and love. You just put those two together and get out of the reality box and into the fantasy box. I think people can really get drawn into it. You layer in the music sweeter, a little nicer, that kind of thing, add a little chuckle here and there, a little gag. I think it’s worth an hour and a half, two hours of people’s time at Christmastime with their family, just to see something special.