Beverly D’Angelo, actress, fondly recalls making ‘Christmas Vacation’: “I loved the way Chevy and I interacted”

Christmas is almost upon us and once the gift shopping is finished and wrapped, we can curl up on the sofa to enjoy holiday films. One comedy that has become a classic is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the third installment of the Griswold Family’s misadventures during vacations.

Beverly D’Angelo, who played Ellen Griswold opposite Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold in the 1989 film, sat down recently with Reader’s Digest ahead of the holiday season to reminisce about the movie which she said “is one of the best gifts I was ever given.”

“I loved the way Chevy and I interacted”

The self-described “film fanatic” got a new perspective on Christmas Vacation when she watched it with her twin children when they were ten years old. “I felt the same way you recreate Christmas for your kids—you see it through their eyes,” D’Angelo shared, the memory of which made her tear up.

“I thought to myself, You know what? It mattered,” she added. Seeing it with “a child’s eyes” she realized that in Hollywood showbiz where everything “is so calibrated,” the Christmas Vacation movie was “was so fresh.”

“I loved the way Chevy and I interacted,” D’Angelo added. “Our chemistry is there—he makes me Ellen; I make him Clark. It’s such a naturalistic thing. Maybe it didn’t look like acting.”

While she didn’t have many lines in the movie, she thinks the way she presented Ellen on screen in the face of Clark’s mishaps helped make the movie a classic. “Honestly, they probably should be divorced. But they’re motivated by a love of family, and that love conquers all,” she reflected. “The heart remains. No matter what happens, these people stay together.”

D’Angelo didn’t think Christmas Vacation would have staying power

When she made the film, it was the third installment of the National Lampoon’s Vacation franchise, of which there are now six full-length and one short, D’Angelo didn’t think it would hold up well against the test of time. However, she thanks director Jeremiah Chechik’s skill with the lighting and thinks the way the movie looks has helped cement Christmas Vacation’s popularity.

“The lighting in the movie is fantastic. If you revisit it, it’s shot in a way that is quite beautiful,” she said. “And it’s paced well. And then things start to arrive the more you see it.”

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