Mary Steenburgen is reminiscing about some of her most memorable moments while making the 2003 holiday film Elf.
In an interview on Today Tuesday, Nov. 18, the 72-year-old actress noted, “Between [Elf] and Stepbrothers, my two Will Ferrell movies, there’s a lot of lines to quote.”
There are also, she added, moments she won’t ever forget — like filming the scene in which her character enjoys a plate of spaghetti made by Buddy the Elf (played by Ferrell) and topped with chocolate, candy, and maple syrup.
“That first scene of the dinner, that’s the very first scene in the movie,” Steenburgen said on Today of the scene, which begins with Buddy chugging an entire 2-liter of soda. “And I wasn’t yet used to anything of the way he was dressed. And I broke up so many times during that scene. Plus, while eating spaghetti with maple syrup.”
When Today co-host Craig Melvin asked if the actress “actually did eat it,” she responded, “I actually did eat it. I’ve had worse, but it’s not my dream food.”
In an exclusive chat with PEOPLE surrounding the Jon Favreau-directed holiday classic’s 20th anniversary in 2023, the actress elaborated on her time shooting that scene, saying it was often difficult to get through shoots due to laughing at Ferrell, 58, with the late James Caan.
“I had not seen even a design or anything about what Will was going to look like,” Steenburgen recalled of Ferrell’s now-iconic costume. “And then he comes in. … And I’m tall, but he towers over me, and he comes in in this elf outfit, and then I’m having to eat the spaghetti with maple syrup.”
“I just spent the whole day trying to get my lines out without laughing,” the Oscar winner added.
According to Steenburgen, she, Caan and even Ferrell would sometimes “ruin a take a little bit from laughing.”
“You didn’t really get used to it,” she told PEOPLE. “I think we’re all used to it more now than any of us were then, because we’d never seen it on posters or on sides of buses or any of that. And so we did tend to just enjoy it so much.”
