As“ Prancer ”Turns 35, Former Child Star Rebecca Harrell Tickell Says She’s Living the Life Her Character Would Have (Exclusive)

Rebecca Harrell Tickell knew that Prancer was special from the moment she read the 1989 holiday film’s script as an 8-year-old child actor.

“I remember I cried,” the 44-year-old documentary filmmaker and environmental activist tells PEOPLE. “And I remember reading it and just thinking, ‘I am gonna get this part because this is me.’ ”

And get the part she did, beating out other young actors to star alongside Sam Elliott, Rutanya Alda and Cloris Leachman as Jessie, a little girl who nurses an injured reindeer back to health, believing him to be a member of Santa’s team.

The film was a modest success at the time, but has gone on to become a Christmas cult classic. Ask folks who grew up in the late ’80s and early ’90s to name the most famous reindeer of all and, sure, they’ll probably still say Rudolph. But chances are Prancer comes in at a close second.

Related: Who Runs the Sleigh? Girls! Science Says Santa's Reindeer Are Actually All Female

“I think for people who watched Prancer, they feel like they sort of grew up with it and it became part of their tradition,” Tickell says.

That’s especially true for people in La Porte, Ind., and Three Oakes, Mich., where much of the movie was shot. This year, Tickell returned to both towns for “PrancerPalooza,” a two-day celebration on Dec. 14 and 15 of the film’s 35th anniversary. Tickell revisited the shed where her character hid Prancer in the film, signed autographs, rode in a parade, attended a Sam Elliott lookalike contest, and took part in a Q&A with director John Hancock following a screening of the film.

Prancer fans shared memories and stories with Tickell, which she says show the profound and lasting impact the film has had on people.

“One gentleman battling stage 4 cancer shared that meeting me was on his bucket list,” she told PEOPLE following the event. “A woman recounted how her daughter didn’t like how Sam Elliot treated me in the film and went on to be a social worker as a result.”

Watching the film with her own 10-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son has become a tradition for Tickell as well.

“It’s really sweet because my son, he gets worried about me,” she says. “It’s a little bit confusing for him because he’s like, ‘Wait, is that your dad? Wow, he’s kind of mean.’ They don’t like it that my character struggles. They’re like, ‘Where’s your mom? And why are you walking alone through the woods?’ I’m like, ‘Well, it was the ’80s.’ ”

Related: Tami Stronach Talks The NeverEnding Story's Legacy and Its Influence on Her New Film, Man and Witch

Tickell compares the making of Prancer to the wild west. “We did not adhere to any hourly schedule that should have been in place,” she recalls. “I was working throughout the night. I was up way before the sun came up. I worked six days a week. With the deer, I was leading her around. And honestly, I loved it. I loved every second of it.”

She describes Hancock, whose own ranch served as another primary filming location, as “like family, and still considers Elliott as something of a father figure. The two still talk regularly, and she has many of the A Star Is Born Oscar nominee’s voicemails saved on her phone.

Even as a young girl in 1989, Tickell says she was aware that she was working with entertainment legends. “Sam just was constantly followed by women throwing themselves at him,” she recalls, “and Cloris, she was a total riot. And both of them were method actors, so they related to me like their characters. So, Sam really was like my dad.

She remembers one scene in particular in which Elliott’s character is holding Jessie and the script called for her to laugh. After Hancock yelled "Cut," Elliott, still in character, looked at the young Tickell and sternly told her she needed to do better. “He related to me like somebody who was the character that he was to me in the film,” she says, “who loved me, but it was a tough love, and also the kind of love of somebody that wanted me to do great.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

Tickell went on to appear in a handful of other film and TV roles in the late ’90s and early 2000s, but ultimately decided to shift her focus to documentary filmmaking. She and husband Josh Tickell have produced and directed more than a dozen features and shorts centered on environmental issues and sustainable farming. Their 2008 film, Fuel, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at that year’s Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. King Charles III has even reportedly called their 2020 film, Kiss the Ground, which focuses on regenerative farming, his favorite movie.

Tickell sees a direct connection between her current work and Prancer, which she notes has a struggling farming family at its center. “I think for a lot of people back in 1989, and the reason it held up over the years, is because it reflects the struggle that Americans, especially American farming families feel,” she says. “That resilience and that American grit that comes through in the film resonates with people because it captures that hardworking American midwestern spirit. And Jesse’s optimism and the fact that she refuses to give up and that she keeps that magical spark alive — I think that’s what really touched people.”

The Tickells continue to return to the theme of farming in their films, she says, “because it’s through farming and how we manage the land and how we grow our food that we can actually draw down carbon and create climate resiliency. That’s what our films are all about.”

And she has no trouble imagining where her plucky, openhearted character would be today. “I think like Jessie, I have this fierce love of nature and of animals and of life,” she says. “I think Jessie’s spirit is in me and I think very much she’s a part of me to this day. I’m living sort of the life that I think she would have led.”

Read the original article on People