8-Bit Christmas’ Steve Zahn and June Diane Raphael on the Toys They Wanted as Kids

With director Michael Dowse’s 8-Bit Christmas now streaming on HBO Max, I recently spoke with June Diane Raphael and Steve Zahn 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 (Winslow Fegley) desperate quest to get the latest and greatest video game system for Christmas. The film also stars Neil Patrick Harris as the older Jake Doyle, Raphael and Zahn as Jake’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, June Diane Raphael and Steve Zahn talked about what they were both desperate to own as kids, how the film has A Christmas Story energy to it, the timelessness of the script, what someone should watch if they’ve never seen anything Raphael or