Will Ferrell needs to go to the bathroom. En route to chat with Ferrell about the charming new holiday comedy Elf, in which Ferrell plays a fully-grown Santa's helper who ventures out into the real world with heartwarming results, I run into Ferrell himself in the hallway, who deadpans directly to me, "We're going to do this interview in the bathroom, okay?"

When you meet someone funny whose reputation as a full-on goof precedes them, you find yourself attempting (even if you wouldn't ordinarily) sometimes pathetic, stabs at humor. Ferrell's remark set the tone for our talk, but to my surprise, it was no Robin Williams one-man show. In contrast to his zany TV and screen persona, Ferrell's genuinely nice guy-on-the-street directness suggested an appealingly ordinary guy with a low-key streak of good-humor.

To see him in Elf is to see the very nature of the star vehicle at work. The film, a gentle holiday comedy about a human elf that graduates from the North Pole to modern-day Manhattan, in search of his long-lost father, is an ideal fit for Ferrell's signature lunacy. But Ferrell generously infuses the movie with a surprisingly sweet sincerity that proves he - and we - have something special, beyond his entertainingly comic hijinks, to look forward to in his screen future.

Lee Shoquist, ReelMovieCritic.com: The Elf trailer doesn't give you a sense of how sweet this film really is. From the ad campaign, it looks like a "Will Ferrell" film or some wacky-type comedy. But it turns out to be this storybook movie that's got more heart than you expect.

Will Ferrell: Yes. That was kind of- not a battle, really, but obviously this type of movie was a first for me to do only because I guess you'd classify what I've done in the past as strictly comedies for comedy's sake. This film was one that (director) Jon Favreau really wanted to make sure was heartfelt and that it definitely had a story and worked as a film. My tendency would be to say, `Well, let's make sure it's funny though.' And between the two we found that balance. But it's nice that it works on all those levels.

And Elf was something that didn't happen right away. It was something that had been around for four or five years. And one of the producers had called my manager, and we thought if we could get all the elements together that it would be something that would be a different type of movie for me, so that's how it all came together. And we thought, me in an elf suit on a poster would be some sort of hook, at the very least, you know?

WF: I didn't really know what to expect and I was a bit nervous working with these guys. But other than Jimmy Caan consistently telling me how unfunny I was, it was great. And the thing that I appreciated and marveled at was how much these guys are still passionate about (acting). They are still in love with working.

WF: I was joking about that, but Jimmy Caan literally said, `I thought this would be fun. I'm a fan of yours. Will Ferrell is a funny guy! But you're not funny. You made me laugh once. When are you going to…?' Because he is a great storyteller and remembers jokes and I can't do any of that, so he was constantly ribbing me. Bob Newhart and Ed Answer were both familiar with stuff I had done, which was really flattering. Bob is just as funny as ever and just as sharp. So it's great and it's nice to see that people are responding to them being in the film, enjoying seeing them cast in roles you're not accustomed to seeing them in, but also the nostalgic quality of it all and so it was serendipitous for us in a way.

LS: Watching you prance around Christmastime Manhattan in tights is certainly a funny sight. Did you blend right in to the New York City street culture dressed in that way, just like that guy in Times Square who plays the guitar year-around in his Speedo?

WF: Does he actually engage people? I have to check that out! People didn't seem to notice either way. In fact, they would avoid looking at me either way. So I'd actually cause people to cross the street and things like that.

LS: Let's talk about the onus that gets put on being a comedic performer. Once you're labeled as an extremely funny actor or someone who can produce laughs out of anything, is there a lot of pressure to always make something comic, or to always get the belly laugh?

WF: I don't ever really feel that way, because I don't worry about being funny, if that makes sense. Even onstage at the Groundlings it wasn't necessarily about saying funny things or writing funny lines, because I could never really do that unless they came out of improvisation or the situation. My strengths were always playing a certain attitude or level of commitment, or just playing it straight while juxtaposed with whatever stupid situation I found myself in.

So playing a character like this (Elf) where there was no winking at the camera, it was all just playing a super-earnest, exuberant, joyful character that viewed the world without any kind of filter. And so that was basically my job, and I hoped that it would end up being funny.

It was fun to kind of think about things simplistically, and I tried to be in the moment. And there's a scene where I'm talking with the kid, played by Daniel Tay, and I say, `I saw a dog today. It was kind of a big dog.' Kids are just stream of consciousness. So I tried to just focus on being in that state of mind. If you see something that's scary, you react. If you see something that makes you laugh, you laugh right away.

LS: How important is it to improvise on a film set, and in the case of Elf, when an actor like Jon Favreau is directing you, is there room for you to sort of do your own riff, so to speak, or say `I'd like to try the scene this way, just stick with me…?'

WF: Yeah, I think it's essential when you're doing comedies, because it adds another dimension to what you're doing, and another layer of spontaneity that many times you just don't get. But with Elf it just depended on situation. If we were in an area that lent itself to improvisation, we would definitely try a whole bunch of different variations. But there were also other situations where we didn't have the time or luxury to mess around with it. A lot of the North Pole stuff where we shot the forced perspective, was so much just getting the technical stuff lined up, that you found yourself just not being able to really riff with it.

WF: Yeah, a lot of that was pretty much scripted and was one of those that was pretty good the way it was written. Even though I definitely improvised the reaction where he's running to me. I think he's trying to give me a hug. He's pretty strong. He's tough!

WF: I wholeheartedly believed as long as I possibly could. Up until last week actually. And boy, that was tough to get out of bed that day. I don't know when- I was ten, eleven, twelve when I walked into my dad's closet and saw a toy that I knew my brother was getting, and it took my breath away. It was like, `Oh, damn. The rumors I've heard. They're true.' But I kept it from my younger brother for as long as I could. But I think my brother was always one step ahead of me, like, `He doesn't exist.'

WF: I would do some of the (PA) morning announcements when I was a senior in high school. A friend and I started doing - writing these little skits. We were trying to sell senior class tee shirts, and sales were lacking, so my friend, who was the class president, employed us to create a marketing campaign for these tee shirts. So we'd either imitate people - other students, or just fictional characters - and the next thing you know, the faculty would ask, `When are you guys going to do another announcement?' I started performing in assemblies and things like that. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was actually suppressing those types of performance urges. It didn't go off like a light bulb, like, `I'm going to go into comedy! I'm going to do this.' I still went to college and graduated. It wasn't until later that I thought, `There's still nothing that seems to quite interest me the way that did, so I'm going to take a shot at improv and try some stand-up, if I can get up the nerve.' So it kind of slowly developed.

WF: It wasn't a hard decision. There's no real reason other than I just felt done with doing it, in a good way. I knew I wanted to leave feeling like I had not stayed too long - I still wanted to like doing the show when I left. But once I decided, there were other contributing factors. You know that at some point you have to leave the show. And some of the key writers I really like working with were starting to leave.

At the same time, there wasn't this supreme confidence that I could go right into movies. And I didn't have anything lined up. Elf was the closest thing that was starting to get going, and I knew Old School was in the can and would come out the next year. We thought we'd made a funny movie, but I've had that happen a lot before. I have yet to work on a film where they don't say, `The dailies look great!' I've yet to work on a film where they say, `The dailies were not so good today. It's okay!'

I had that whole summer off, and we started pre-production in September or October on Elf, so I had that whole time where I had the feeling like, `Well, this is what it's like to not work!' But I have this thing in me that once I make a choice, I don't really worry about looking back.

WF: I think there were some very funny- it was a strong premise, to begin with. I think there was something between Vince and Luke and myself - three guys you wouldn't necessarily put together in a movie - that kind of worked well. And the thing we kept hearing was that it was like the Animal House of today. We never said that, but a lot of people have said that, and someone said to me today that there hadn't been a movie like that in awhile that had all these quotable lines and funny set-pieces that you keep laughing about as you go on into the next scene of the movie, and you almost miss what's coming up next.

I don't necessarily know how it happened. I never thought the whole dart in the neck scene would come together, and then falling in the pool, the whole The Graduate moment and all that stuff. I remember reading it and thinking, `Oh, that's kind of funny.' But it was just executed really well, and I guess too that there was, despite being a certain type of comedy, at the same time you kind of identified with those characters. And I think I found in my personal experience that oddly enough, people kind of connected with the guy I played and felt sorry for him. So maybe there was enough humanity in there that it offset all the outlandish stuff.

WF: I don't know. Because they said in a previous issue, of a Fall Preview issue of movies coming up, they talked about Elf. And it says, `What's at stake? Ferrell's career.' So I don't know how I can be on the up and coming power people if I've got all that riding on this movie. So we'll have to see.

WF: They're serious prospects. A Confederacy of Dunces is looking back in limbo. It's the movie that everyone in Hollywood wants to make but doesn't want to finance. They don't see it as a lucrative endeavor, but I think that movie just has to be made for the sake of making it. It's easier for me to say because I don't have to worry about paying the money. And Bewitched is a definite - we're just kind of waiting on the latest draft revision.

Yeah, it's so many different things all at one time. It's so cool to actually be in a Woody Allen movie. It's surreal to even get notes from him. It's just bizarre. And yet I've had every experience thus far, to doing a scene twice, then moving on and doing a scene 33 times, and then coming back and re-shooting another day, then coming back and re-shooting another day.

WF: You know what? I should really ask him, because that's the word that came back to me - that supposedly, "Woody loved Old School." I don't think Woody Allen said that. My publicist works with Jason Biggs, and he said that Woody said the same thing: `He loved American Pie!' I think his casting people kind of keep him in the know of people who are- so I think I had gotten a couple of good words from the casting folks. I should ask him, `Did you actually watch Old School?'

WF: Yeah. I'm just kind of not in that Robin Williams kind of mode of can easily access these things right away. I have to kind of think about it. And then people are like, `Oh, yeah right. We've been waiting all day.' And then they're let down and disappointed, but what can I do?

WF: They wanted me to do it for Elf, but there was no time in the schedule. So, maybe possibly at the end of the year, for the promotion of Anchorman. It would be be kind of fun. I think. It will be fun or horrible.