The actress shared how she ultimately landed the part on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast.

Zooey Deschanel reveals she almost missed out on Elf role: ‘We offered it to Katie Holmes’

The actress shared how she ultimately landed the part on Alex Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" podcast.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in *TV Guide Magazine*, E! News/E! Online, *The Hollywood Reporter*, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, *The Daily Northwestern*, and more.

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December 22, 2025 7:40 p.m. ET

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Zooey Deschanel and Katie Holmes. Credit:

Monica Schipper/Getty; Kristina Bumphrey/WWD via Getty

Son of a nutcracker!

Zooey Deschanel revealed in a new interview that she almost didn't star in *Elf* because Katie Holmes was first offered the role opposite Will Ferrell's Buddy the Elf.

"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,'" Deschanel said in Wednesday's episode of Alex Cooper's *Call Her Daddy* podcast. "And I was like, 'Oh, okay, cool.'"

Luckily, the *New Girl* star, who was 21 at the time, didn't immediately leave the audition. It turns out her low-stakes conversation with Favreau afterward helped her eventually lock down the part.

Zooey Deschanel in 'Elf'.

New Line/Courtesy Everett

"He's like, 'Well, sit down and talk for a minute,'" Deschanel remembered. "I was like, 'Okay!' What was great about that was I wasn't nervous [anymore]. 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 because I was not nervous."

Holmes ultimately had to drop out of the film due to a scheduling conflict (*Elf* was released in November 2003, six months after the final season of *Dawson's Creek* finished airing). That's when Deschanel's name came back up for casting.**

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"They were like, 'Who should we have?'" Deschanel said. "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."

Watch Deschanel's interview in the video below:

Deschanel played Jovie, Buddy's love interest, who meets the man-sized elf while working the holiday shift at Gimbels. Buddy falls for her when he overhears her singing in the shower at the department store, and can't help but join her rendition of "Baby It's Cold Outside."

The meet-cute is not so romantic for Jovie, who is understandably startled when the stranger (who has limited social skills after growing up in the North Pole) starts singing along with her.

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"When I read it, I remember I was giggling out loud, and I was really enjoying myself," Deschanel said of the script. "I was like, 'That must be a good sign.' I've taken that as my litmus test ever since then — almost every time that I laugh out loud while reading a script, because if you laugh out loud while reading a script, then you're probably going to laugh even harder when you see someone doing it well."

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