8-Bit Christmas: Neil Patrick Harris and Winslow Fegley on Their Holiday Film and the Nintendo NES

With director Michael Dowse’s 8-Bit Christmas now streaming on HBO Max, I recently spoke with Neil Patrick Harris and Winslow Fegley about making the family-friendly, holiday film loaded with ‘80s nostalgia. Written by Kevin Jakubowski (and based on his book), 8-Bit Christmas takes place in the late 80’s when the Nintendo NES was the video game console everyone wanted, and the film follows ten-year-old Jake Doyle’s (Fegley) desperate quest to get the latest and greatest video game system for Christmas. The film also stars June Diane Raphael and Steve Zahn as Fegley’s parents, and David Cross also appears. 8-Bit Christmas was produced by Tim White, Trevor White, Allan Madelbaum, Nick Nantell, and Jonathan Sadowski. During the interview, Neil Patrick Harris and Winslow Fegley talked about what they were both desperate to own as kids, how the film has A Christmas Story energy to it, how the film is more sentimental than Harris was expecting, the video games they’d bring with them if trapped on an island,