Christmas is long since over for most of us, but for Wilmington actress Kristi Murdock, it’s just getting started.
Starting Jan. 18, Murdock will be starring in and producing “A Proper Christmas,” a feature film she also wrote. The movie will shoot at area locations through January.
Murdock is a native of Jacksonville who studied theater at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Not long after graduating in 2005, she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived for about 15 years.
“As an actor you kind of fall into a niche,” Murdock said during a phone interview.
Her niche is Lifestyle/Hallmark Channel-style Christmas movies, romantic comedies and thrillers. She’s got some two dozen TV movie credits with titles like “Furry Little Christmas,” “The Serial Killer Seduced Me” and “My Nightmare Office Affair.”
Murdock’s most recent credit is the romantic comedy “Technically Yours,” which aired on the family-friendly UPtv channel and can also be seen on the free Tubi streaming service. Her co-star in that movie, Tom Gipson, also co-stars in “A Proper Christmas.”
Murdock moved back to Wilmington a few years ago, and “over all my time acting in these movies, I said, ‘I feel like I could do something like this.'”
She’s got a relationship with the production and distribution company Nicely Entertainment from past films, Murdock said, and “they’ve really held my hand thorough this entire process, showed me how to create a movie from scratch.”
Murdock raised money from investors, hired a cast, crew and director Collins White, and wrote a script she called a “holiday romance about love, loss and second chances.”
What was already a personal story turned even more so when her father passed away on Christmas Eve of 2025. In a heartfelt social media post, Murdock wrote, “There is so much of me in this movie,” adding that after her father passed, she wrote a scene inspired by him and put it into “A Proper Christmas.”
Area locations include The Christmas House in Southport, the Wilmington Riverwalk, Greenfield Lake and a private home in Porters Neck Plantation. A major location is the Banter bar downtown, which plays the movie’s local pub.
Wilmington actors in the film include stage vet Robin Dale Robertson as Percy Hollingsworth, a musical Brit who entertains at the pub, with Alisa Harris (“Outer Banks,” “Haunted Mansion”) as Dot, a sassy Southern barkeep.
Former Wilmington actor Dan Burke is coming back to town to shoot a small role, and Burke’s daughter, Leona, wrote a song, “Don’t You Move Away for Christmas,” that Murdock is including in the movie.
Murdock said the plan is for the movie to air at Christmastime later this year, and while distribution has yet to be finalized she said it’s possible it airs, like her most recent film, on UPtv.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.starnewsonline.com ’
