Will Ferrell Was Worried ‘Elf’ Would End His Movie Career

It’s Christmastime 2018, which means this year marks an extra special holiday anniversary: 15 years since the release of Elf, one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made.

Will Ferrell, the film’s star, visited The Late Late Show with James Corden this week and the host asked him about the experience of making the movie back in 2003.

“It’s such a brilliant film,” Corden remarked (correctly).

“Is this true? When you were shooting Elf, you were worried that it was going to end your movie career?,” Corden asked.

“Yeah there were moments,” replied Ferrell.

“The first two weeks of shooting were kind of all the exteriors in New York and so, you know, still kind of discovering what this movie’s going to be and running around New York City in yellow tights,” the actor continued.

“People recognizing me from Saturday Night Live going, ‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’ and thinking to myself this is either going to be a home run or people are going to go, ‘Whatever happened to you? Why did you do that one about the elf?’”

Luckily for Ferrell, “the stars aligned.”

Ferrell went on to talk about James Caan, who played his father in the film, and the veteran actor’s response to the movie at the premiere.

“He came up to me at the premiere,” explained Ferrell, “and you know, it had gone great, and people were like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is gonna be fantastic’, and he’s like, ‘Hey, I got to tell you something. Every day on set I thought you were way too over the top, but now I see what you’re doing. Great job!’”

“So I just love the thought that there we were working every day and he’s going back to his hotel room going, ‘Jeez, get me out of this one!’”

We’re glad it worked out for the entire cast of Elf, which also included Bob Newhart, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Asner, Peter Dinklage, Amy Sedaris, Faizon Love, and Daniel Tay.

Following the tale of Buddy the Elf as he travels from the North Pole to New York City to find his father, Elf was written by David Berenbaum (The Haunted Mansion, The Spiderwick Chronicles) and directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book).

Elf (2003) is currently available to rent or buy on Amazon.