{"id":680621,"date":"2026-07-08T15:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680621\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T15:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:43:15","slug":"zooey-deschanel-went-blonde-for-elf-because-she-was-supposed-to-play-pop-star-like-britney-spears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680621\/","title":{"rendered":"Zooey Deschanel went blonde for ‘Elf’ because she was supposed to play pop star “like Britney Spears”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zooey Deschanel<\/a> has revealed that the reason she has blonde hair in Christmas movie Elf was because she auditioned for the part of a pop star.<\/p>\n

One of the New Girl star\u2019s breakthrough roles was playing Will Ferrell\u2019s<\/a> love interest in 2003\u2019s Elf, with the actor sporting blonde dyed hair as opposed to her natural dark hair. During an appearance on The Zach Sang Show on Monday (July 6), she explained the reasoning behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did a screen test for a movie that never ended up going about like a pop star that was like Britney Spears<\/a>,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt didn\u2019t ever happen, but yeah, it was a pop star that was like Britney Spears, who then \u2014 it\u2019s like Roman Holiday, where she has a day where she\u2019s not a pop star.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

She explained that the change was because \u201cI didn\u2019t look to [the producers] what a pop star looks like \u2014 so they were like, \u2018We\u2019re going to make you into a pop star.\u2019 They dyed my hair blonde, and they put these extensions in, and they gave me a tan and a whole thing. I did look as much like a pop star as I can. But then the movie never happened, but then here I was with this blonde hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cIt was right after that screen test that I went in for Elf. Once I got cast, I was like, \u2018Well, can I dye my hair back brown?\u2019 And they were like, \u2018No, you need to look how you looked in the audition.\u2019 So that\u2019s how I ended up blonde in Elf. Not because I was like, \u2018I need to be blonde.\u2019 It was really random.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zooey Deschanel would become a pop star of sorts as part of the duo She & Him<\/a> (alongside M.Ward), whose 2010 album \u2018Volume Two\u2019 would reach number six on the Billboard 200 chart. She has also sung on various movie soundtracks, including Elf where she sings \u2018Baby, It\u2019s Cold Outside\u2019.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the star opened up about another famous role, that of the title character in 500 Days Of Summer. She discussed how she received abuse due to the film\u2019s success and how she has always felt \u201cprotective\u201d of the character.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zooey Deschanel has revealed that the reason she has blonde hair in Christmas movie Elf was because she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}