{"id":355735,"date":"2025-12-18T08:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355735\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T08:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:37:07","slug":"zooey-deschanel-says-elf-role-offered-to-katie-holmes-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355735\/","title":{"rendered":"Zooey Deschanel Says ‘Elf’ Role Offered to Katie Holmes First"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tZooey Deschanel<\/a> revealed during an interview on the \u201cCall Her Daddy\u201d podcast that she was offered the female lead in Jon Favreau\u2019s 2003 Christmas movie classic \u201cElf<\/a>\u201d only after Katie Holmes<\/a> dropped out of the film due to scheduling conflicts (via The Daily Beast<\/a>). Deschanel was only 21 years old when she auditioned for the movie, although she revealed Favreau told her they didn\u2019t need to run any lines together because \u201cwe just offered it to Katie Holmes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Oh, Ok, cool,\u2019\u201d Deschanel remembered, adding that she proceeded to \u201caudition\u201d for the movie just by staying in the room and chatting with the director as if they were just meeting up to talk.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat was great about that was like, I wasn\u2019t nervous,\u201d Deschanel said. \u201cIt\u2019s like when you\u2019re an actor, you\u2019re like first starting, and you\u2019re auditioning, you get nervous, and you\u2019re like psyching yourself up. I wasn\u2019t nervous at all, because I was like, \u2018Well, I\u2019m not getting the part.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Holmes dropped out, Deschanel left a good enough of an impression on Favreau that she was next in line to be offered the part. She starred in \u201cElf\u201d as Jovie, a department story worker who becomes the love interest for Will Ferrell\u2019s Buddy. Deschanel said the role \u201cwas kind of meant to be like worked around whoever played her,\u201d so the screenwriting team wrote in scenes where Jovie sings in the shower since Deschanel was a singer. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cElf\u201d earned over $220 million at the worldwide box office at the time of its release and remains a Christmas classic. Ferrell plays Buddy, a human raised by Santa\u2019s elves.\u00a0He travels to New York City to meet his biological father, played by James Caan.\u00a0Ferrell\u00a0previously revealed\u00a0<\/a>that he once turned down a $29 million offer to star in an \u201cElf\u201d sequel.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would have had to promote the movie from an honest place, which would\u2019ve been, like, \u2018Oh no, it\u2019s not good. I just couldn\u2019t turn down that much money,\u2019\u201d Ferrell said about the simple decision to reject \u201cElf 2.\u201d \u201cAnd I thought, \u2018Can I actually say those words? I don\u2019t think I can, so I guess I can\u2019t do the movie.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch Deschanel\u2019s full interview on the \u201cCall Her Daddy\u201d podcast in the video below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zooey Deschanel revealed during an interview on the \u201cCall Her Daddy\u201d podcast that she was offered the female…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,176456,88,26495,176152],"class_list":{"0":"post-355735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-elf","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-katie-holmes","12":"tag-zooey-deschanel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}