Screen Community Grief: Colin Lawrence, Virgin River ‘Preacher’ Star, Dies in Accident md20

Alexandra Breckenridge didn’t think she was anyone’s first choice to play Santa Claus, but it turns out she was wrong.

The Virgin River actress, 43, stars in Netflix’s latest Christmas movie, My Secret Santa, premiering Wednesday, Dec. 3. In it, she takes on the Mrs. Doubtfire-esque role of Taylor, a single mom who is struggling to make ends meet when her daughter Zoey (Madison MacIsaac) is accepted into an exclusive ski-boarding school at a local resort. When Taylor finds out employees at the lodge get a half-off discount, she goes undercover as an elderly man named Hugh to take the only job available: Santa.

For Breckenridge, taking on the unexpected task of playing Santa was the challenge she had been waiting for.

“I’ve been wanting to do something really outside of my comfort zone for a long time, and this is not something I ever thought I would have the opportunity to do,” she tells ENTERT. “I don’t think many women or female actors would think that they would play Santa Claus in this capacity, so I was really excited to wear prosthetics and put on a new voice and try to have a different posture.”

Despite her excitement, Breckenridge shares that she was surprised when she found out she was producer Howard Braunstein’s first choice for the role of Taylor. “I never get the opportunity to take on any kind of comedy, really,” she says. “I mean, I’m definitely not on anybody’s short list to play Santa Claus, at least I thought. But apparently Howard Braunstein thought that I would be just the perfect Santa.”

It turns out a one-episode role on the short-lived 2014 Fox series Rake starring Greg Kinnear caught Braunstein’s attention in a major way.

“I remember asking him how, I was like, ‘How did you come up with offering me this part, I mean, out of all these other comedic actresses and people you would normally think to play something like this?’ “

His response? “He said, ‘Well, I saw you in this episode of Rake,’ this show from a million years ago. And he said, ‘You were really funny in it. And I just thought, she can do this.’ And I was like, ‘Wow.’ I mean, you have to really trust your actress if you’re going to put her in a Santa suit and say, ‘Everybody come along with me on this journey.’ Because I mean, it’s a big ask,” she explains.

Thanks to the prosthetics and the unique challenge of playing a woman playing a man who is also playing Santa Claus, Breckenridge admits “it was not an easy role, but I was grateful for the opportunity, for sure.”

She’s also more than willing to slip back into the suit for a My Secret Santa 2 if Netflix is so inclined.

“I like creating Christmas magic for my children,” the mom of two explains. “It’s something that brings me the most joy, is to create that experience for them. And so, being a part of the storytelling of Christmastime in different iterations — obviously My Secret Santa is sort of an extreme, it’s a romantic comedy, it’s got a little bit of slapstick humor in it … but it still brings that holiday magic and that warm fuzzy feeling I think people look for when they’re watching holiday films.”

“And so I love being a part of that no matter what it is. If I’m bringing the holiday magic at home or I’m bringing it into your living room, I’m here for it. I mean, yes, of course I would do another one. I think we should do a Secret Santa 2,” she says excitedly, adding that Netflix should get the writers to work on figuring out why Taylor has to slip back into Santa mode again.

While there’s no doubt My Secret Santa‘s concept is an unusual one, Breckenridge — who routinely makes viewers cry as soulful nurse Mel Monroe on Netflix’s Virgin River — grounds the comedy with a true sense of pathos as Taylor struggles to ensure Zoey gets to follow her dreams. The actress shares that she felt a connection to the source material thanks to the sacrifices her own mother made as a single parent.

“My mom probably would’ve done the same thing,” she says of the great lengths Taylor goes to for her child. “She was always scrimping and saving and making sure that I could go to dance classes and art classes and gymnastics. She was always making it happen and she raised me on her own … it felt very close to my reality as a teenager, but from my mother’s perspective.”