James Caan Didn’t Find Anything Funny About Will Ferrell

In yet another example of life imitating art, Will Ferrell irritated James Caan nearly as much as Buddy bugged his biological father Walter Hobbs in the Christmas comedy Elf. In fact, between scenes, Caan would tell Ferrell that he didn’t understand why everyone found the Saturday Night Live star so hilarious.

“He would tease me,” Ferrell confessed on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast. “In between setups, he would be like, ‘I don’t get you. You’re not funny.’ And I’m like, ‘I know. I’m not Robin Williams.’ And he was like, ‘People ask me: ‘Is he funny?’’ And I’m like, ‘No, he’s not funny.’”

In the film, Caan wasn’t simply putting on as the irritated dad. “He's not acting,” Ferrell claimed. “He's truly annoyed with me. ‘This guy, shut the fuck up. Jesus!’ I literally drove him crazy in that movie, just acting like that kid.” 

Caan, however, changed his tune after seeing the final cut of Elf. After the film’s premiere, Ferrell and Caan walked out of the theater together. “(Caan) was like, ‘I got to 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.’”

“I take it as the best compliment because it’s coming from James Caan,” Ferrell said. 

In the original screenplay, Caan would have matched more of Buddy Elf’s oversized emotions. “It was scripted that he would get more frustrated and lose his temper with me,” explained Ferrell. “And he didn’t want to do any of that. He wanted to save it till that moment in the boardroom where he kicks me out and kicks me out of his life. He’s like, ‘No, it’s gotta be this slow build.’ And he was totally right.”

Elf came to Ferrell when he was still working on SNL. “It was a great concept but the script really needed some work. I left SNL with the concept but not necessarily a great script,” Ferrell said. “We could see what the one sheet was, but boy, we had to figure out how it would work. I knew it definitely wasn’t going to work without committing fully to fish out of water.” 

Ferrell’s 100 percent commitment to the bit definitely worked — both for the movie and for driving Caan up a wall. Ironically, it was the exasperated Caan who wanted to reunite with Ferrell for an Elf sequel, but he lost out when Ferrell wouldn’t get back on the train despite a $29 million offer for the gig, per IndieWire.

“We were gonna do it, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I finally got a franchise movie, I could make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do.’ (But) the director (Jon Favreau) and Will didn’t get along very well,” Caan said on the radio show Bull & Fox in 2020. “So, Will wanted to do it, (but) he didn’t want the director, and he had it in his contract. It was one of those things.”