The original holiday movie premieres Sunday.
Adam Rodriguez and Jessica Camacho are ringing in the holidays. The duo star in CBS' original movie, A Christmas Proposal, which premieres this weekend, and only ET exclusively debuts a sneak peek from the festive film.
The holiday movie follows down-on-her-luck chef Maria Winters (Camacho), who dreams of starting her own line of food trucks, and agrees to pose as the girlfriend of hotshot Seattle attorney Julian Diaz (Rodriguez), visiting his family for Christmas, to help him prove he’s the ideal candidate to take over the family firm. But their business arrangement is complicated by the magic of the season as real sparks begin to fly.
In ET's exclusive clip, Maria cooks up a fancy Christmas dinner for Julian and his family, and makes one small request that doesn't go over well with some of them, who are attached to their phones at the table. The holiday feast Maria's prepared for the Diaz clan? Slow-braised Persian lamb shanks, whipped potatoes with a hint of Irish whiskey and Moroccan-spiced baby carrots. But just as they start to dig into the delicious meal, Maria makes sure they follow one of her family traditions.
"Would everyone kindly put your phones on silent and place them into this bread basket?" Maria asks, prompting Julian's brother -- the least interested in following this request -- to wonder if they've traveled back in time to the 5th grade.
When Julian tries to defend Maria, she politely declines his help. Instead, she takes it upon herself to explain why. "The way we did it at my home, growing up, dinner was no distractions, no interruptions. Nothing to keep us from enjoying from what was right in front of us: food and each other. So, what do you say?"
Julian's sister is clearly impressed by Maria, simply saying, "Mic drop," as she puts her phone into the basket, while the Diaz patriarch agrees it's "a small sacrifice we all can make, considering your hard work in the kitchen." With Maria's family tradition acknowledged, it's time to eat!
Rodriguez dropped by the ET stages to discuss A Christmas Proposal.
"I think representation really mattered. The fact that I hadn't seen any Christmas movies, especially not on a network, that was centered around American families of Latin descent. So I really was excited about being the first to do that -- from what I understand the first -- and to do it on CBS, who have been in partnership for so many things over the course of my career. It was really a great opportunity to jump in and do this and to have a hand in giving it shape the whole way through," he told ET's Lauren Zima.
"I got a chance to work on the script and retool some things that would make it a little more authentic to the family we were presenting and it was a great collaboration [with] the director. And Jessica Camacho was an awesome co-star," Rodriguez praised. "She's so great in the movie. She steals the show."
Of course, it being a holiday movie and all, romance is at the top of the list.
"You have to have a little romance. The beauty is there's this guy at the center of it who's missing out on all these things -- the whole family is actually. I mean, they're they're not communicating with each other. Everybody's got these little secrets and there's distance but nobody understands all it takes is just making a little effort to connect," Rodriguez explained. "This woman comes in from out of nowhere and not only wakes up my character, Julian, to the fact that he's actually missing out on life when he thinks he's crushing it. But he's actually missing out in the best of what life has to offer."
"And part of what he's missing out on is this connection with his family. She wakes everybody in the house up to that and it's beautiful," he added. "That's my favorite part of the story. You've got everything, you've got each other and if you're not paying attention to that, you're missing out."
A Christmas Proposal premieres Sunday, Dec. 12 at 8:30 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT on CBS.
To stay up to date on breaking TV news, sign up for ET's daily newsletter.
RELATED CONTENT:
