Dan Bucatinsky won’t be surprised if his and Kristin Chenoweth’s Our Little Secret characters feel oddly familiar to Bravo fans.
“We are fans. Kristen and I are both fans of The Real Housewives franchise,” Bucatinsky, 59, exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing his new holiday film. “I watch a few of them, let me put it that way. I watch a few of them. And one of my high school buddies is one of the Orange County Housewives, Heather Dubrow.”
He continued, “Heather Dubrow and I have a long history with each other. I spent some time with her and was even in an episode of Orange County this past season as part of a benefit for family equality. So we have a long history so I’m not surprised that a little Real Housewife [energy] wound up in there.”
Our Little Secret, which hit Netflix on Wednesday, November 27, follows resentful exes Avery (Lindsay Lohan) and Logan (Ian Harding) who, after discovering their significant others are siblings, are forced to spend Christmas under one roof while hiding their romantic history. Bucatinsky, for his part, plays one half of their unhappily married in-laws: Leonard, a constantly steamrolled husband to his wife, Erica (Chenoweth).
Of course, Dubrow and her husband, Terry, are happily married — but Leonard and Erica’s heightened hijinks feel reminiscent of something from Real Housewives past. And while Lohan and Harding spearhead the film beautifully, Bucatinsky and Chenoweth’s constantly clashing dynamic — and ageless yearly self portraits — serve as much of the film’s comic relief.
When discussing his chemistry with Chenoweth, Bucatinsky revealed that the twosome actually met “years and years ago” through a “mutual friend” — but neither of them can remember anything about it.
“Neither one of us really remember the circumstances, nor do we remember what we talked about,” Bucatinsky said with a laugh. “So it really was, in a way, a first-time meeting. And it really was love at first sight.”
The actor added that since making on screen magic, he and Chenoweth have become an “inseparable” duo, noting that they both really “committed” themselves to portraying “what was a very dysfunctional marriage.”
“We were given the freedom on this movie to play around and come into a scene with whatever happened right before,” he explained. “On the page was a guy named Leonard who was not allowed to speak in front of his wife because he was henpecked. But Kristin and I really wanted to fill in that relationship. Like, how do we bite at each other? And where are the hidden resentments and where are those looks and those comments? We just had a really good time filling those moments.”
While Bucatinsky praised Hailey DeDominicis’ strong script, he said that there were plenty of moments where he and Chenoweth “ad-libbed” in order to “fill” the moments in between written dialogue — with not all of the added quips making it to the final cut.
Jake Brennan as Callum, Dan Bucatinsky as Leonard, Kristin Chenoweth as Erica, Jon Rudnitsky as Cameron and Katie Baker as Cassie in ‘Our Little Secret.’ Chuck Zlotnick/Netflix
“Believe me, there was lots of stuff that we improvised that there was no time for in the movie,” he said with a laugh. “It was, after all, [a] rom-com. The movie’s about Lindsay and Ian, of course, but we had a really good time.”
Bucatinsky gave endless props to Lohan for leading the charge, pointing out the Parent Trap star’s “sheer instinct” and talent, particularly when it comes to comedy.
“She’s got great instincts on how to use her body, that fabulous scratchy voice. And Lindsay brought her A-game. You know, she is intuitive,” he said. “She’s a really good physical comedian, which I love. She was just a delight.”
While Lohan and Harding may have taken center stage, Bucatinsky got his own moment to shine when, in the film’s final act, Leonard’s affair with family friend Margaret (Judy Reyes) is discovered. The hilarious scene features an absolutely shocked Logan opening the door to see Bucatinsky and Reyes’ characters passionately making out during a Christmas Eve party.
“Judy Reyes is amazing. I love Judy and I had met Judy before. I think I met her because we had friends in common in the Latin community,” Bucatinsky recalled. “So it was fun to work with [her] before we had to wind up in that closet and figure out our choreography of how we were gonna make out and how we were gonna make that funny and physical, and how we were gonna giggle and get Ian to find us.”
Bucatinsky noted that director Stephen Herek really let the two actors “play” and try different versions of the scene, hoping to find the funniest way to execute the moment. “We had so much fun,” he said. “[It was] like being in a play.”
Even before getting to set and working with his incredible costars, Bucatinsky knew he had signed up for something special. The actor is no stranger to holiday content — he served as executive producer on Freeform’s Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas in 2019 — and immediately recognized what made Our Little Secret stand out.
Dan Bucatinsky as Leonard and Kristin Chenoweth as Erica in ‘Our Little Secret.’ Chuck Zlotnick/Netflix
“I am a fan of the Christmas movie, but they all sort of follow a very similar formula,” he told Us. “And there was something about this script. I thought it was very funny. Second of all, I loved that it had a Meet the Fockers vibe to it. That in the midst of this rom-com with these characters who have been avoiding each other for 10 years, you get to meet this entire quirky family, all of whom have secrets of their own.”
The Baker and the Beauty alum joked that, as a writer himself, he was “jealous” of DeDominicis’ creative ideas, adding, “It’s so hard to reinvent the Christmas movie — and I feel like Hailey did that.”
Now, with Ghosting and Our Little Secret under his belt, Bucatinsky thinks it might be time he write his own holiday film — one that isn’t afraid to break the mold even further.
“After producing Ghosting, I started to collaborate with Laura Donney, the writer of Ghosting. And I said, ‘Let’s try to tackle another holiday movie with the same philosophy. Let’s figure out how to do it in a way that hasn’t been done before. What are the elements of a rom-com that everybody expects? And then, what are the things that we don’t expect that would surprise us that we can?’ … It’s a challenge that I think is fun. It’s fun to play around with. So it might happen one of these days.”
Our Little Secret is now streaming on Netflix.