Birds of Prey and A Royal Christmas Star Charlene Amoia Is Writing Her Own Christmas Movie
Charlene Amoia might be best known for her years on How I Met Your Mother, but she is one of those actors who seemingly never stops working. Whether it's indie projects, her TV series Sons of Thunder and These Stones, or appearances in hits like The Flash, The Conjuring: Devil Made Me Do It, and Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, Amoia is always out there. And like so many others, as the holidays approach, she finds herself appearing in a family-friendly Christmas film, Gac TV's A Royal Christmas On Ice.
The actor played the role of Maria Bertinelli -- the Huntress's mother who, like the rest of her family, didn't make it out of the flashbacks alive. It was a short shoot, but an important one for Amoia, who found the environment on set to be really refreshing.
"One of the things that was very unique to that movie was that it was very heavily female produced," Amoia said, saying that she was proud of the film and its reception with fans. "It was really nice to be working with such a large group of amazingly talented and wonderful women."
While she didn't share any scenes with Robbie in Harley Quinn, Amoia said that she got to meet with the actor, who also served as an executive producer on the film, and was really impressed by her personality and presence on set.
"I was a huge fan of her from the original Suicide Squad and I, Tonya as well. I love how much she throws herself into her roles," Amoia said. "She really deserves every wonderful thing that has come her way."
In spite of being a relatively small role, Amoia decided to dive in the way you expect the stars to, picking up back issues and trying to fill in as many gaps as she could.
"I found several different versions of Maria Bertinelli's backstory so I chose the juiciest one to fill in the details as I was working on it," she explained.
That commitment to a small part may be a result of her years as Wendy the Waitress, a character who took on a fandom all her own on How I Met Your Mother and was, for years, a fan-favorite to actually BE the titular mother.
"There are quite a few fans out there that will comment on my social media pages," Amoia said. "It always surprises me that Wendy gets so much love along the way."
Like Robbie, Amoia is interested in pursuing more behind-the-scenes work, and hopes to write and produce a film coming up soon. The subject matter is pretty familiar to the star of The Christmas Pageant and A Royal Christmas on Ice.
"I've just begun writing a Christmas movie actually, as something that can be shot in my hometown of Buffalo again," Amoia said, citing the good experiences she has had on films with A Royal Christmas on Ice filmmaker Fred Olen Ray. The pair previously collaborated on 2016's Sniper: Special Ops and 2017's Deadly Vows.
"Fred made a joke to me on set this last time saying, aWell, I think we've done just about every kind of movie together now,'" Amoia said. "The first movie we did was action, second was a thriller and now a light and charming Christmas movie."
You can catch A Royal Christmas On Ice on GAC TV this weekend.