Zooey Deschanel reveals she almost lost out on ‘Elf’ role
Zooey Deschanel has confessed that she almost didn’t land her role in the Christmas movie, Elf.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, the actor revealed that the role of female lead in the 2003 Christmas classic was originally meant to go to Katie Holmes.
The (500) Days of Summer actor was only 21 years old when she was informed by director Jon Favreau that her part had already been cast; the news was broken during her audition. “And I was like, ‘Oh, Ok, cool,’” Deschanel recalled.
The audition set-up was peculiar, as she was asked only to sit and chat with the director as if they were old friends. “What was great about that was like, I wasn’t nervous,” Deschanel said.
She added, “It’s like when you’re an actor, you’re like first starting, and you’re auditioning, you get nervous, and you’re like psyching yourself up. I wasn’t nervous at all, because I was like, ‘Well, I’m not getting the part.”
It was only after Holmes dropped out due to scheduling conflicts that Deschanel landed the role. She then played Jovie, a department store worker who acts as the love interest for Will Ferrell’s character.
Deschanel was allowed to put her personal spin on the role. She recalled that the role “was kind of meant to be like worked around whoever played her.” Consequently, the screenwriting team wrote in scenes of her singing in the shower, since Deschanel was a singer.
The Christmas comedy was a huge hit, grossing around $230 million worldwide against a modest $33 million budget. It has since become a Broadway musical, too, but Ferrell admitted that he turned down a whopping $29 million to star in a sequel.
Speaking on the possibility of a follow-up, Ferrell said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, “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’. And I thought, ‘Can I actually say those words? I don’t think I can, so I guess I can’t do the movie.’”
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