Peter Billingsley and Vince Vaughn are a dynamic holiday duo.
Friends started A cinematic Christmas journey podcast last year, which recently wrapped its second season, with an episode dedicated to all things die Hard.
In conversation with the PEOPLE surrounding the podcast, A Christmas story the actor, who co-hosts a podcast with Steve Byrne, recalls meeting Vaughn when they were both 18.
While Billingsley, now 52, was “trying to go behind the scenes” until that point, Vaughn, now 53, “was really just getting started” in the industry.
“Being able to form a friendship first is very rare,” says Billingsley. “And then eventually we’ll be able to work together as we both start to grow and work, to have that trust.”
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Peter Billingsley and Vince Vaughn in New York on May 20, 2017.
Michael Ostuni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley explore holiday nostalgia in ‘A Cinematic Christmas Journey’ podcast
The actor says it’s “been such a blessing” and “really fun” to experience personal and professional moments with Vaughn, who he first met while working on an episode in 1990. CBS Special School Vacation. Later, together they founded the company Wild West Picture Show Productions, which is behind hit films such as Interruption (2006), starring Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, and Four Christmases (2008), in which Billingsley appeared alongside Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon.
“There’s nobody funnier in the room. There’s nobody better,” Billingsley says of his friend. “There’s nobody with a better sense of story than him. He’s the best.”
“And everyone always asks me, ‘Is he really what he looks like in his movies?’ Just this super cute, cool guy, and I’m like, ‘He’s even better,'” he adds Dwarf actor. “It was really, really nice to have the opportunity to have him.”
Billingsley, who reprized his role as Ralphie Parker in last year’s sequel Christmas story ChristmasVaughn tells PEOPLE was the one who came up with the idea for AND A cinematic Christmas journey.
“He talked to me about the podcast and said, ‘You’d be great at making Christmas movies.’ And I thought, ‘You’re right,'” he says of Vaughn.
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A cinematic Christmas journey podcast. Why did Peter Billingsley wait almost 40 years to film A Christmas Story Christmas
“And I think I’ve done five Christmas movies now. So it’s a genre that I personally like – something that I know very well,” he adds. Christmas with the Campbells co-producer.
The podcast took a “deep dive” into movies like Home alone, It’s a wonderful life, die Hard, Miracle on 34th Street — and, of course, in 1983 A Christmas story and its sequel in 2022.
“We really get a chance to look at a lot of scenes from the movies, break them down. And I, as an actor and a director, can also give a little insight into what the filmmakers are trying to do,” says Billingsley.
“And I think, just as fans, we all like to revisit them, and it’s been really fun for me to dive deep into them and delve into them a little bit more,” he adds.
The first two seasons of the series A cinematic Christmas journey the podcast is now streaming on Spotify.
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Source: HIS Education