First of all, could you tell us about "The Winter Palace"? What can viewers expect?
"The Winter Palace" is an adorable romantic comedy set at wintertime, of course. My character is Emily Miller. I'm a writer, a novelist, and I have total writer's block. I cannot write to save my life, suddenly. My best friend is a property manager who's got this big house, this big palace, this chalet up on a mountain in Colorado. She's like, "Look, we need a house manager. We need somebody just to go up there and just care take [of] the house. Just knock the icicles off, make sure the pipes don't freeze up, and you can sit there and just write. It's beautiful. You'll love it." I'm like, "Great."
So I go up there. First morning after I wake up in the morning, someone knocks on the door. I'm like, "Who is this?" And she tells me, there's this family who owns the house. They're a European wealthy family. And they never go there. Well, sure enough, they show up. And it's not just a European family. They're a royal family, and the prince himself is there.
I find out that as a caretaker of the house, one of my roles is to complete any reasonable requests that they have. So now I'm working for this royal family while I'm trying to write. It's a great, really fun setup. And of course, it's a romantic comedy, so a lot of really funny things happen. And maybe we end up getting along at the end, but we certainly don't get along to begin with.
So what attracted you to this role and to this project?
I love a good royal story. I mean, like every little girl growing up, I loved Cinderella and just fantasies. It's adorable. But in this movie, in particular — and I've done a ton of romantic comedies, let's face it — but in this one, there's more comedy, I guess. And my costar and I, Neal Bledsoe, we had so much fun. The entire cast was amazing, everyone with their British accents, except for me, of course.
It was one of the most creatively fulfilling roles I've ever played. It was just such a great collaboration on the set. And it was such a fun premise, just being stuck there in this beautiful chateau, but being forced to work for this family while I'm trying to write my book and looking for inspiration. And the prince is in a ... he's about to become king. And so, he's dealing with his own stuff. And we end up kind of being exactly what the other one needs in the most unexpected ways.
