Will Ferrell says James Caan told him ‘you’re not funny’ on ‘Elf’ set: ‘Truly annoyed with me’
Son of a nutcracker! Will Ferrell’s “Elf” gets plenty of laughs with audiences — but co-star James Caan found the “Saturday Night Live” alum to be anything but funny while on set.
Ferrell opened up about the late actor while appearing on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s “MeSsy” podcast earlier this month.
Caan played Walter Hobbs, the father to Ferrell’s Buddy in the Jon Favreau-directed comedy, which has become a staple holiday movie. Caan died from a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease on July 6, 2022. He was 82.
“James Caan — may he rest in peace, and we had such a good time working on that movie — he would tease me,” Ferrell recalled on the episode. “We’d be in between setups, he was like, ‘I don’t get you. You’re not funny. You’re not funny.’ And I’m like, ‘I know! I’m not Robin Williams.’ He’s like, ‘People ask me, “Is he funny?” And I’m like, “No, he’s not funny!”‘ It was all with love.”
“I love that the whole time, he’s not acting,” Ferrell, 56, went on. “He’s truly annoyed with me. Like, ‘Will this guy shut the f – – k up? Jesus!’ So I literally drove him crazy in that movie, just acting like that kid.”
“Elf” also starred Zooey Deschanel, Bob Newhart, Edward Asner and Mary Steenburgen. The storyline focuses on Buddy the Elf traveling from the North Pole to New York City to meet his biological father Walter, who naturally wants nothing to do with him. After Buddy eats some gum on the street, makes spaghetti and syrup for breakfast and bonds with Walter’s younger son, he eventually saves Christmas and helps his dad believe in the holiday spirit.
“It was scripted a little more that he would get more frustrated and lose his temper with me, and he didn’t wanna do any of that,” Ferrell explained on the podcast. “He wanted to save it til that moment in the boardroom where he kicks me out and kicks me out of this life, like, ‘No, it’s gotta be this slow build.’ And he was totally right. He had plotted where his performance was gonna go.”
Despite Caan’s initial skepticism about the project, he appeared proud of what they made after seeing the movie for the first time.
“We were walking out of the theater at the premiere, and we walk out together, and he was like — I take it as like the best compliment, cuz it’s coming from James Caan — he’s like, ‘I gotta tell you, I thought everything you were doing while we were filming was way too over-the-top. Now that I see it in the movie, it’s brilliant,'” Ferrell told Applegate and Sigler.
“That was so funny, he’s walking out, shaking his head, going like, ‘Great job. I thought you were way too over the top. But no, it’s brilliant.'”
“Elf” was Ferrell’s first major project after exiting “SNL” after seven seasons in 2002. He was understandably nervous about making sure it was a success.
“I just was kinda like my chin in my hand looking at myself in the elf costume going, ‘Oh boy Buddy. This better work. This could be your last movie,'” he recalled. “I just was like, ‘I hope, this is either gonna really work or it’s gonna be just disastrous’… and I knew it definitely wasn’t gonna work without committing fully to it’s fish out of water.”
The “Anchorman” actor, however, doesn’t appear to have any plans to do a sequel any time soon. In fact, he previously turned down a $29 million offer to do one.
“I would have had to promote the movie from an honest place, which would’ve been, like, ‘Oh no, it’s not good. I just couldn’t turn down that much money,’” Ferrell told the Hollywood Reporter in 2021. “And I thought, ‘Can I actually say those words? I don’t think I can, so I guess I can’t do the movie.’”
