Ben Stiller and Linda Cardellini star as Mike and Gretchen in Nutcrackers. The new holiday movie is now streaming on Hulu!

Nutcrackers follows strait-laced and work obsessed Mike (Stiller) as he is suddenly thrust into being a caregiver for his rambunctious, orphaned nephews.

“I just love that it was this sort of classic thing of a guy who’s just living his own life for himself, who’s forced to confront the reality of having to sort of be there for other people and the shallowness of what happens when you kind of don’t think about anybody but yourself, and being up against these four kids and kind of having to become someone who’s not self-centered,” Stiller explained. “The love that the kids show him that he’s lacking, that he doesn’t even realize he’s lacking, to me, it was sort of the moving part of the movie. Then, of course, connecting with these real kids and the experience of making the movie in the real place, in the real farm, that kind of made it all sort of feel very organic.”

“I think it comes from something inside of her too, that wishes she had family like that, that she had some, you know, that she wishes she had kids. I think she loves children and I think it’s a really tough job that she has, and I think more than anything, like when I was looking up how they do their job, the majority of what they try to do is keep families together. And so, I think her heart would be so broken to see those children go separate ways and not be able to stay together, especially after you see their bond. So I think her job is to sort of shepherd him into the person that she sort of, I don’t know how she sees it, but she sees a glimmer in there of somebody who can actually do this,” Cardellini shared. “She sees that they need him and he needs them just as much.”

We talked about their characters, the importance of heartfelt comedies, and which themes resonated with them.

Watch my interview below: