Zooey Deschanel is looking back at starring in Elf!
If you forgot, the 45-year-old Emmy-nominated actress played Will Ferrell‘s love interest Jovie in the 2003 Christmas movie.
While appearing on the new episode of Call Her Daddy, Zooey revealed that she originally lost the role to another big name actress.
Keep reading to find out more…Zooey told podcast host Alex Cooper that the role of Jovie first went Katie Holmes, but she had top drop out of the movie due to “some scheduling conflict.”
“When I met with Jon Favreau, the director, I walked in and he was like, ‘Oh, you don’t need to read. We just offered it to Katie Holmes,’” Zooey recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, OK, cool.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, sit down and talk for a minute.’ I was like, ‘OK!’”
“What was great about that was, I wasn’t nervous,” Zooey continued. “When you’re an actor, you’re first starting, and you’re auditioning, you get nervous, and you’re psyching yourself up. I wasn’t nervous at all, because I was like, ‘Well, I’m not getting the part.’ It was kind of great cause I was not nervous.”
Once Katie, 47, dropped out of Elf, Zooey was back in the running for the role.
“And then they were like, ‘Who should we have?’” Zooey added. “I think the character was kind of meant to be worked around whoever played her, and they knew I sang because I had a cabaret act, so that kind of worked out with the character.”
2003 was actually a very busy year for Katie. In addition to wrapping Dawson’s Creek after six seasons, Katie also starred in the Thanksgiving movie Pieces of April and the musical crime comedy movie The Singing Detective.
Did you know Will turned down an Elf sequel? You won’t believe how much money was on the table when he said no.
December 19, 2025 at 10:39PMfrom Just Jared https://ift.tt/jsgK3lz
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