[Editor’s note: The following includes spoilers for Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas.]

If you’re trying to figure out what to watch this holiday season, the feature-length film Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas (available to stream for free on The Roku Channel), which continues the story after two seasons of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, is an excellent choice to help get you into the spirit. Attempting to recreate the magic of Christmas is no easy task for someone who hears everyone’s inner thoughts manifest in song form, but Zoey (Jane Levy) also finds herself also trying to explain to her boyfriend Max (Skylar Astin) that his new and identical powers are not as easy to handle as he thinks they are.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, Levy talked about the emotional roller coaster it was to go from the show being canceled to then getting to do a movie, why the fans of Zoey’s move her to tears, the four days of prep she had before filming, the fun of actively getting to partake in the singing and dancing, her favorite song to perform, her hope for Zoey’s powers, and whether she’d be game to do more Zoey’s movies in the future.

Collider: Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas is just absolutely delightful. You thought the show would get picked up, but then it didn’t. You thought it might go to Peacock, but that didn’t happen. And now, Roku stepped in to do this Christmas movie. Was that just an emotional rollercoaster that you went on, with finding out the show got canceled, and then getting to the point where you learned about the Christmas movie?

JANE LEVY: Absolutely. Honestly, in some ways, I’m still processing. This has been such a big deal for me, in every way. The show has just been so formative for me, as an actress and as a human being. I’ve spent so much of my life, in the last three years, working on this. Comprehending that it’s over, or that it may be over, is pretty hard. There’s still a part of me that’s like, “Did we really even shoot that movie? Did we really shoot Season 2 in a pandemic?” That’s another big part of it. So much of this show was shot during the pandemic and all of it came out during a pandemic. So, to answer your question, yes, it’s all been a huge emotional roller coaster. We all thought we were coming back for Season 3. Then, we were told we weren’t, but we were moving to Peacock. And then, we were told we weren’t doing that. And then, we were told that we were making a holiday movie, all within a very short period of time, under a month. I’m just feeling a lot and a huge amount of it is gratitude because I love this show and this part and my experience working on it, so much. And then, another part of it is confusion because I don’t know if we’re gonna make more in the future. It’s very strange. The biggest feeling I have is gratitude.

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Image via The Roku Channel

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What is it like to know that the fans really had a hand in willing this into being? What do the fans of the show mean to you?

LEVY: It moves me to tears, thinking about the fans. I’ve never had such a fulfilling experience. The response from the fans, in person and on the internet, has just been so validating. Not validating because I’m like, “Oh, we did a good job,” but more spiritually, on a grander scale. It feels like I’m doing something important, that’s important to me and important to the people who I’ve had that exchange with. They championed us to get picked up for more episodes. That overwhelms me with love. I’m just like, “Wow, you can tell stories that are so universal that it connects with people.” I’m in awe of that. So, if fans are reading this, thank you.

Yes, it’s a great show. Yes, you can tune in and hear some great music and see some great musical performances. But then, there’s also the emotional level that it all plays on with the whole family element. This is a show that works on many levels, in that way.

LEVY: Yeah. We all know what it feels like to yearn for parental protection, love, and care. I think that is what has made our show so special. I feel like we have really authentically portrayed that human need.

It seems like it was a whirlwind from finding out that you’d get to do this movie, to it having to be written fast, to you having only a matter of days to get ready to do everything that came with this for preparation. Did that come with pressure, or was there no time to even have pressure or to freak out?

LEVY: As a performer, anticipatory performing is the hardest thing for me to reconcile with. If I have time, I’ll just convince myself with every terrible thing in the world. But if I don’t have time, it’s what you’re saying, you’ve just gotta do it. I had four days to prep for this movie. I didn’t even read it until maybe a week before we started shooting. And then, I got there and I had four days to learn all of the choreography, to learn all of the music, to record the music, to have my wardrobe fitting, to do the hair and makeup tests. Four days, which is pretty crazy. But because that’s what we had, something happened where I was like, “Well, that’s what we have. No time to freak out. Just time to memorize.” I will say that because we have so much time under our belts, working with each other and playing these characters and just knowing how the system works, we were able to do this in record time.

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Image via The Roku Channel

I love the performances that you have with Skylar Astin in this. I love the mash-up that you guys get to do with “Just the Two of Us” and “We Need a Little Christmas,” and I love the duet that you have with “Time After Time.” What was it like to get to do those numbers, especially because doing numbers with him also having powers?

LEVY: It was really fun. For me, any opportunity to get to partake in the singing and dancing is really exciting because I spent two seasons watching everybody do it, with a couple of exceptions. For me, I was just thrilled to be able to hang out with Team Dance, and also to work with Skyler in a way that wasn’t adversarial. In Season 1, we got to be dorky friends, but then eventually, it got dramatic. And then, in Season 2, I was with Simon. When we were working together, it was not usually happy scenes, so being able to be happy and in love was really a fun thing to be able to do because I feel like Skyler and I hadn’t had much chance to do that together.

You also got to do some great songs in this. Did you have a favorite song to perform? Are they all fun? Are they all nerve-wracking?

LEVY: “We Need a Little Christmas” was my favorite. It turns out that being a zany Christmas elf is my truth and somehow (show creator) Austin [Winsberg] saw that in me. In Season 1, I did “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” and that was one of my favorite numbers that I got to do. And then, “We Need a Little Christmas” might be a runner-up. Clearly, there’s some psycho Christmas enthusiasm waiting to come out of me.

In getting to explore Max having the same powers that Zoey has, do you feel the purpose of that really was so that he could have some empathy for her and really understand what it’s like?

LEVY: I tend to think about everything from Zoey’s perspective because I’ve spent so much time playing her, and I feel like the reason why Max got the power is so that they could be together and so that Zoey could be happy. And I think that came from her dad. That’s my theory. When she talks about the universe, she was given this power to communicate with her dad when her dad was dying, so that she wouldn’t retreat from the world. Instead, she would have to go forward in it, even while she was losing the person most important to her. And then, when we see her, at the end of Season 2, she says to her dad, the reason I can’t commit to Max is because I don’t wanna lose anyone ever again, he basically says, “Zoey, you can’t live like that. The power keeps teaching you, over and over again, that you can’t code your way out of situations and you can’t just retreat when things are painful. You actually have to lean into life, and sometimes life is as excrutiatingly painful as it is beautiful, and maybe even at the same time.” So, I feel like then her dad was like, “Okay, I’m gonna give Max the power because that’ll make it so that they can actually be together. He can understand her and she’ll feel seen, and she can be safe with this person.”

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Image via The Roku Channel

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It’s interesting because we have this mystery of why Zoey got these powers in the first place, and now there’s also the mystery of why she still has them when they’ve come and gone for Max. Do you personally hope that she always keeps them, or do you hope that they will also disappear for her someday?

LEVY: That’s a really good question. Sometimes I have this fantasy that Zoey will end up being some Yoda-esque character and she’ll find other young people with this power and coach them. But somehow I feel like we’ll never be able to see that because it would maybe no longer be Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.

How much did it mean to you to get to include Peter Gallagher in this? This entire episode is really dedicated to wanting to keep his memory alive, so would it have felt wrong if he hadn’t been able to be involved, in some way?

LEVY: Yeah. My favorite part of the show is the relationship between Zoey and her dad. For me, it wouldn’t be a Christmas special without Peter Gallagher.

I love a good holiday episode of TV. I’ve been known to watch holiday episodes of shows. I don’t otherwise watch just because I love holiday episodes so much. Are you personally a fan of holiday episodes? How did you feel when you found out this would be a Christmas special?

LEVY: I’m not, not a fan of Christmas movies or special, I’ve just never really watched them before. I’m very much like Zoey, in that I’m really not that good at musical history knowledge. And then, we were making a Christmas movie and I really don’t know much about Christmas movies. I haven’t even seen the classics, like the one with the kid in the bunny suit. I’ve never seen any of them. So, I was mostly just excited that we got to make more of this story. For me, the Christmas was neither here nor there. But then, when I read the script and I worked on it, I was like, “Oh, Christmas is such a wonderful backdrop for our show.” It’s family togetherness, heart-forward, warm and delightful. It’s funny to describe my own show that way, but I felt like it was a really good pairing, Christmas and Zoey’s.

How do you feel about where the movie leaves things, compared to where the show had left things? Does it feel like you have more of a sense of closure, if this is it for Zoey and her world?

LEVY: I feel like I have annoying answers to things because I’m like, “Well, I don’t watch Christmas movies.” But in terms of closure, I don’t really think about stories in terms of closure. I’m like, what is closure? What good play ends with closure? I don’t know what closure would look like to me. Even when the show was maybe canceled after Season 2, I was like, “Hmm, no one planned for that to be the ending, but what an interesting ending.” I think about The Sopranos, my favorite show of all time, and do you think that got closure? I don’t know. I personally don’t look for that and I don’t really know what it means.

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Image via The Roku Channel

It just feels like Zoey is in a bit more of a happy place at the end of this movie and, even though I want to see more, I don’t feel as shocked as I did by the end of Season 2.

LEVY: That’s a good way of putting it. That’s a perfect way of putting it. There are less questions. I thought it was really lovely, how the movie ended, where she basically says to Max, “Maybe all of this happened because the universe was telling me to look up.” When I read that, I was like, “Oh, look up from your computer screen to see the man sitting over there who loves you, who you obviously love too. Stop being so obsessed with succeeding and getting it right, all the time, Zoey.” I thought that was a pretty cute gesture.

You have played some pretty great characters in your career, and Zoey is such a memorable character. When you’re reading scripts or trying to figure out what the next step might be for you, how do you decide that? Is it just an instinct? Do you have a personal checklist of things that you’d like to do? Do you just go with what comes your way? How do you approach that?

LEVY: It’s definitely an instinct. When I’m reading a script, simply, if I’m excited to keep reading it, that’s a really good sign. In terms of the character, I do find that I’m attracted to things that are a little offbeat or strange because I think, “Oh, that would be so fun to work on.” When I read straight dramas, I am not super excited, personally. I also don’t really like to watch just straight drama. Life, in general, is scary and dramatic enough. I’d rather have something that at least has a little bit of humor in it, or a little bit of perversion, or some sort of exercise in extremes. I am attracted to that. I’m always attracted to something where I feel challenged or I have to learn a new skill. It’s script by script. The writer is a big part of it, and thinking about whether their voice is something that I could lend my voice to. It’s always a scary when a job ends because I feel like, no matter where you are in your career, you convince yourself that it might be the end, and maybe it is.

Austin Winsberg told me that, if Zoey’s gets to continue, it would likely be more movies rather than a season because scheduling would be so hard now. Would you be game to do more Zoey’s movies? Are you hoping for that possibility?

LEVY: Of course, yeah. Skylar has some really good ideas, like Zoey’s Extraordinary Labor Day, but not Labor Day, the holiday, more like her giving birth.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas is available to stream at The Roku Channel.