In the middle of Christine Milian And Deval Ellis‘a love story on screen in Meet me next Christmas, they nailed a move in a no holds barred lip sync battle.

“It was awesome,” Ellis, 40, exclusively told Us every week Wednesday, November 13. “I think the energy in that room when we were walking across the stage was so great. Like, they were cheering us on. It was exciting, man.

In Meet me next Christmas, Layla (Milian, 43) races across New York before Christmas to get a ticket to the sold-out festival Pentatonix Holiday Concert and meet the man of her dreams (Kofi Siriboe). Ellis plays Teddy, a janitor that Layla hires to help her in her quest.

Layla and Teddy’s journey takes them all over New York, including a drag queen lip sync battle in Brooklyn for a chance to win tickets. Under the direction of Teddy’s cousin (Kalen Allen), the duo performs an impressive dance to the holiday classic “Santa Baby.” (Unfortunately — spoiler warning — Layla and Teddy’s performance finished in second place and was therefore not good enough to win the ticket prize.)

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In fact, the rehearsal scene was Ellis’ favorite of the entire film.

“The scene with Kalen in the house and us learning to dance… was so funny,” he said. We. “But then it turned into a romance with the two of us in the kitchen preparing the food. It was just that whole scene at home (that) brought it all together.

While the scene showed more of Milian’s role long-standing musical talentsit was something entirely new to Ellis.

“No experience in singing and dancing, but I love singing in the shower and Michael Jackson“He’s one of my favorite artists, so I grew up imitating Michael,” Ellis joked. “So I just added some of those moves into (the scene) so it didn’t look too bad and any time you can add a little bit of Michael Jackson to it, it’s always fun.”

Milian’s favorite moment in the film, meanwhile, was the scene where Teddy accompanied Layla as she tried to buy scalped tickets from another seller.

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“I’m making fun of (Teddy’s) outfit and here’s this guy, he’s all dressed up and he shows up (he has tickets to last year’s show),” Milian said. “I think that scene was quite funny because I think it was one of the (first) things we shot and you can see the characters sort of blossoming into comedy in that scene.”

Meet me next Christmas launched Netflix holiday film rolloutalready landing first place in the weekly Top 10 ranking.

“The Netflix family is awesome,” exclaimed Milian. We. “I am happy that we were able to launch this project in a big way. Being #1 among all the different types of shows and everything you can watch and listen to right now speaks to the hearts of so many people. For example, people like joy, they like Christmas, they like holidays. They love love and I’m glad we gave them all that and Meet me next Christmas! »

Ellis agreed, noting that it “feels good” to see viewers enjoying the film.

Meet me next Christmas is streaming on Netflix.

With reporting by Travis Cronin