Giamatti joins a list of on-screen Santas

Grinch or Billy Bob? Everyone has a favorite
In an interview alongside each other in a Warner Bros. sound stage, sitting in front of a two-seater sleigh used in “Fred Claus,” Giamatti and Vaughn compared notes on their Santa encounters.

Vaughn said he loves the little Santas in such stop-motion animation TV specials as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” He also thinks some actors more than others possess the right grandfatherly qualities people want in their Santas.

“Was it Burl Ives that did some voice?” Vaughn said. “I think that he and James Earl Jones played Santa at one point. Even if they didn’t, in my mind they did, and you’ll never prove that they didn’t.”

(Ives did not play Santa but was the snowman narrator of TV’s “Rudolph,” while Jones provided the voice of Santa for episodes of the animated show “Recess” and co-starred in the TV movie “Santa and Pete.”)

Like many TV viewers, Giamatti is fond of a particular Santa poseur.

“Hey, the Grinch is good. I’d forgotten about him. He does a good Santa Claus job,” Giamatti said of the creepy cave-dweller who impersonates St. Nick in “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

And like the little brother who screams in terror at a store Santa in the 1983 holiday gem “A Christmas Story,” Giamatti finds something creepy in just about anyone who puts on the red suit.

“I was scared when I went and met the guy. He freaked me out,” Giamatti said of his childhood experiences with store Santas. “My kid when he came to visit the set was kind of freaked out by me in the costume. There’s something a little bit off about it. It’s red and it’s white and it’s big! It’s a lot for a kid.”

“And you’re going, HO HO HO!” Vaughn said.

“Yeah, that and being a little bit ... demonic,” Giamatti said. “So it can be scary for kids, I think. I know I was scared by the department store guy.”

Some people like their Santas demonic. “Fred Claus” co-star Chris “Ludacris” Bridges doesn’t hesitate when asked about his favorite Santa flick.

“‘Bad Santa’ with Billy Bob Thornton,” said Bridges, whose head was digitally grafted onto an elf’s body as the North Pole’s DJ in “Fred Claus,” in which he plays “Here Comes Santa Claus” over and over to inspire Santa’s helpers. “I love him for being a very bad Santa, taking the whole idea and just flipping it to reality. I thought that was funny as hell, man.”

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