In “Elf,” Will Ferrell‘s Buddy treks from the North Pole to NYC to find his biological father, James Caan‘s Walter Hobbs, and Hobbs has little patience for Buddy’s childlike antics. As it turns out, Caan didn’t find Ferrell too amusing on set either.
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EW reports that Ferrell recounted on the “MeSsy” podcast on how he and Caan didn’t see eye to eye while filming “Elf.” So much so, in fact, the legendary actor couldn’t help but tease Ferrell for how over-the-top his acting was as Buddy. “James Caan — may he rest in peace, and we had such a good time working on that movie — he would tease me,” Ferrell told hosts Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. “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.”
Caan’s frustration with Ferrell proved so genuine that it helped strengthen the character dynamics between Hobbs and Buddy. “I love that the whole time, he’s not acting,” Ferrell remembered. “He’s truly annoyed with me. Like, ‘Will this guy shut the f*ck up? Jesus!’ So I literally drove him crazy in that movie, just acting like that kid.” But Caan used his annoyance well: instead of Hobbs being outwardly angry at Buddy the whole movie, Caan let his character simmer before finally boiling over. “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 continued. “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.”
And Caan’s decision proved to be a masterstroke by the veteran. But Ferrell had the last laugh in the friendly tiff, as Caan warmed up to his co-star’s performance after the “Elf” world premiere. “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 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 said. “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.'”
It’s a good thing Ferrell went with his gut to go big in his performance as Buddy, as the actor was worried that “Elf,” Ferrell’s first big film after leaving “Saturday Night Live,” would be his first and last chance at stardom. “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,'” remembered Ferrell. “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 its fish out of water [premise].”
Flash-forward twenty-plus years later, and “Elf” is a modern Christmas classic, and that’s due to Ferrell’s outsized performance — and Caan’s understated one.