Don’t Be a Cotton-Headed Ninnymuggins: Check Out These Elf Secrets
Is ‘Elf’ Getting a Sequel? Will Ferrell Reveals His Plans! (Exclusive)
The best way to spread Christmas cheer is by spilling secrets about Elf for all to hear.
In 2003, Will Ferrell stole our hearts and reinvigorated our love for maple syrup and smiling (which is our favorite), when Elf debuted in theaters. Made for just $33 million, the Jon Favreau-directed feel-good comedy went on to gross over $220 million and, more importantly, has endured as a must-watch holiday classic for all these years.
Ferrell’s turn as Buddy the Elf was his first film after leaving Saturday Night Live in 2022 and found the actor interacting with animated narwhals and snowmen in the North Pole then hopping around New York City in yellow tights. And yet, somehow, it all worked.
Which is good, because there were points during filming when Ferrell truly felt like a cotton-headed ninny-muggins.
“I’m sitting in my tights in my dressing room,” he recounted in a September interview with E! News staring at myself in the mirror going, ‘What did I do? This better work or I’m done.'”
As we know now though, he did it! He made one of the world’s best Christmas movies. Great job, everybody!
But were you aware that Ferrell’s role almost went to another actor? Or that one of his co-stars was concerned that his performance was too over-the-top?
“In between setups, he’d be like, ‘I don’t get you. You’re not funny,'” the Anchorman actor revealed on a July episode of Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler‘s MeSsy podcast. “And I’m like, ‘I know. I’m not Robin Williams.'”
Fortunately there’s room for everyone on the nice list.
And to celebrate the Christmas classic’s Nov. 7 anniversary, we took a journey through the seven levels of the candy cane forest, through the sea of swirly-twirly gum drops and then through the Lincoln Tunnel to uncover these syrupy sweet behind-the-scenes secrets about Elf.
This story was originally published on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 at 3 a.m. PT.