Yellowknife's Dustin Milligan talks joy on set, and pushing beyond his comfort zone for new Netflix movie

Yellowknife's Dustin Milligan is back as the star of a new holiday movie about a snowman who magically comes to life. 

The romantic comedy — called Hot Frosty — was the number one movie in Canada on Netflix. 

Milligan spoke to CBC's Trailbreaker guest host Shannon Scott about making a movie that was out of his comfort zone and how he feels about it being so popular. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Congratulations on this movie. I watched it over the weekend. It's utterly delightful. Every time I log into Netflix, it's in the number one spot in movies in Canada. How does it feel to be getting all this attention and this movie that's making a lot of buzz?

For a movie called Hot Frosty, of all things, with a title like that, yeah, I certainly wasn't really sure how it was going to be received. It was, believe it or not, number one around the world for the last week.

It was bizarre. I mean, it is still a very surreal thing. Again, for a movie that is about a woman who falls in love with a snowman and a snowman who falls in love with this woman — it is, on paper, a very silly premise. But I think what I love about the script is that it does have more to it than that. There's a bit more depth and heart and it's grounded a little bit more than the premise would suggest, and I think audiences are picking up on that. 

I am someone who loves a cheesy Christmas movie, I will watch all of them. And like you said, with a title like Hot Frosty, and the premise of a snowman who comes to life and finds love in the world, that is what I was expecting. But that's not what it is. It's sassy.

I think it's kind of easy to roll your eyes at the genre and to not be as invested. And yeah, all of us, we sort of knew the magic that was possible. The script was really wonderful, but we knew that there was a little bit more that we could all give in terms of commitment to it. I just think as a result, we're very fortunate that it ended up in the final product and ended up kind of resonating with people the way it has.

I think committing is cool, you know, I think caring about something is cool. I also think that's when the messages in the film itself like, why don't we just sort of believe, in this case in a little bit of magic, a little bit of Christmas magic?

How did you prepare for this role? 

It's very difficult to be that exposed. I've experienced disordered eating and body dysmorphia and it was actually very difficult in a lot of ways to do this.

There was quite a lot of mental preparation that I had to go through that superseded any other kind of preparation, certainly in the physical sense, where I just had to be so exposed. And in order to really do this character justice, I had to really lean into that exposure and that vulnerability because that's very much who this character is. You know, he's unencumbered by any kind of body shame or insecurities that the rest of us in real life live with constantly. And like, that was a huge challenge.

I think it was very liberating to get to play this character and go through all those things. As uncomfortable as it kind of was, there was a freedom that I felt on the other side of it that I'm very grateful for. That being said, I am trying to avoid, I think sort of talking about sound-bitey specifics about working out and stuff. Just because I feel like as someone who, as all of us, I think grew up reading these things and hearing about them without the specificity and context of how our own bodies work and what our own journeys are. It's very quickly that they can lead to something kind of harmful.

With only two weeks preparation and having that as your history, this couldn't have been necessarily the easiest role to just jump into that either.

There was a lot of consideration and thought that went into it where I think there was a level of embracing this opportunity that presented itself and being like, OK, I can push this away or I can lean into it and kind of test myself as far as like, what it is that I can do as an actor.

A big part of that in this role was being totally uninhibited by all the things that normally would keep us small and insecure and cover it up, and the physical comedy of this character. 

It was actually one of the best experiences I've ever had on set in my entire career. But first I had to get over those initial hurdles.

What's next for you? I mean, is another movie like this in the future? Are you looking to do something different?

I am back to being wildly unemployed. That's what's next for me. I need a job. But it's one of those things where this has certainly opened up a specific kind of avenue, of types of movies that I'm now less maybe sceptical of, if I can even get. You know, 50 per cent, 25 per cent of the joy on another job that I had while shooting this one, that would be a win for me.