Kal Penn Teases Simon Might Change into The New Santa Claus (Unique) – Hollywood Life

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There’s a brand new Santa Claus coming to city, and it simply may find yourself being Simon, a brand new character in The Santa Clauses TV present. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Kal Penn about how Simon finally ends up on the shortlist to presumably take over from Scott Calvin.

“Simon is a tech bro. He’s created from scratch this unbelievable supply system tech firm the place he makes use of drones to type of get issues to individuals who want them — perhaps based mostly on some issues in the actual world. However he’s a single dad and his actual relationship, the closeness of his life, is his relationship together with his daughter.”

He continued, “So when Santa decides he’s retiring, Santa’s son, performed by Austin Kane, is an enormous fan of Simon and Simon’s firm. That’s principally how Simon turns into one of many many individuals who will get to interview to doubtlessly be the subsequent Santa Claus. However over the arc of the season, you actually get a way of type of whether or not Simon really actually believes within the spirit of Christmas, or whether or not he has been co-opted by greed and that relationship together with his daughter, together with his child, that actually brings him again to understanding the true that means of Christmas.”

Kal’s onscreen daughter, Grace, is performed by the lovable Rupali Redd. Grace is on the core of Simon’s motivation. “She additionally grounds who Simon is, proper? So the truth that she misplaced her mother, I misplaced my spouse, is the backdrop of a lot of what motivates Simon professionally and why he’s — I don’t need to say overbearing — however perhaps why he’s overly protecting of his child,” Kal instructed HollywoodLife.

The actor gushed that the younger actress is an “unbelievable actress.” He added, “I don’t know what her rehearsal course of was like at house along with her mother and father, however she simply got here in and nailed it daily. Made my job quite a bit simpler.”

Previous to getting forged, director and EP Jason Winer emailed Kal a couple of position in his “secret vacation film.” Kal famous that he loves Christmas and, after all, comedy. “So once I found out what it was and skim the scripts, I couldn’t have been extra excited. So this was a extremely particular one,” Kal admitted. New episodes of The Santa Clauses will premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.