Will Ferrell has revealed that he drove James Caan “crazy” on the set of Elf (2003).
In a recent conversation with Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler on their podcast MeSsy, the Anchorman star shared that Caan barely had to act in the Christmas classic, because he was genuinely annoyed.
Ferrell also revealed that Caan outright told him he wasn’t funny, and that his acting for the role of Buddy the Elf was over the top.
“James Caan — may he rest in peace, and we had such a good time working on that movie — he would tease me,” Ferrell said. “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.”
Ferrell explained, though, that Caan’s bemusement with his on-screen demeanour only helped to enhance the comedic dynamic between Buddy and his grumpy father.
“I love that the whole time, he’s not acting,” Ferrell continued. “He’s truly annoyed with me. Like, ‘Will this guy shut the fuck up? Jesus!’ So I literally drove him crazy in that movie, just acting like that kid.”
Ferrell also noted that the script originally intended for Caan’s character to be visibly more angry with Buddy, but the Godfather star knew that he needed to play things differently.
“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 said of his co-star. “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.”
Eventually, though, Caan was won over by Ferrell’s performance style once he saw the completed film.
“We were walking out of the theatre at the premiere, and we walk out together, and he was like — I take it as like the best compliment, cuz he’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 recalled. “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.'”
The Step Brothers star went on to admit that he was anxious about the film’s success, as it was his first major project since leaving Saturday Night Live, and felt Elf was potentially a make or break moment for his career.
“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.”
Ferrell recently reprised the voice role of villain Maxime Le Mal in Despicable Me 4, which is now showing in cinemas.
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