You best know him opposite Vince Vaughn in the classic “guy” films, Made and Swingers, but Jon Favreau can pull off directing a family comedy for all ages. Favreau directs New Line Cinema’s Elf, a comedy starring Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel, James Caan, Bob Newhart, and Ed Asner, about a 30-year-old man who is brought up as one of Santa’s elves. When he learns the truth about his human parents, he journeys to New York City, where he tries to enrich the lives of the people around him through Christmas spirit.

Jon was in New York City recently to talk about directing Elf and also his television show on the IFC Channel, Dinner of Five.

QUESTION: Were you a natural choice to direct this movie?

JON FAVREAU (JF): This one? I don’t think I was an obvious choice for them but Will came to me with it. He wanted to work with me for a while and I think a big fear for everybody was that this not turn into one long sketch. I think in hiring me, they knew that my sensibility was a little more story oriented and not so much gag oriented. It was constantly walking the line of making it a very funny, broad Will Ferrell movie and also keeping the emotional story paying the proper amount of emotion to it because it’s a Christmas movie. We wanted to do something that makes you feel like you should in a Christmas movie. Also, in hiring a cast of not comedians, but actors, to support him. I cast this like I would an independent movie. All these people in this movie popped up in Sundance Film Festival: Zooey, Peter Dinklage, who was in The Station Agent, and Daniel Tay, [who] was in American Splendor. So, I still cast it and Made it with the sensibilities that I have for my other work but only as far as to ground Will, and to allow him to be as crazy as he needed to be, but in grounding the story in reality as much as possible.

QUESTION: Most movies nowadays use digital technology but you avoided that. Would things have been easier or harder had you gone the digital route?

JF: It would’ve been easier to do, in a sense, but I think it wouldn’t serve the movie as well. I think a lot of what makes the film feel familiar and appealing to people my age is sort of the nostalgic casting and depiction of the North Pole. Buddy feels like he just walked out of a Christmas special. The music – I wanted to score it the way you would in a 1960s Christmas special. The animation – I used two-frame animation which is a very, sort of jumpy style where if you had the budget, you wouldn’t do it that way. You do one per single frame animation but I wanted it to feel just like the old shows. And then in putting Peter Billinglsey in there; he did a cameo as one of the elves. He was Ralphie in A Christmas Story and also my producing partner on Dinner of Five. And then also dressing Ed Asner like in the old Coca-Cola ads. I just wanted to use any cultural reference that would make people feel like they’ve seen this place and this movie before. That familiarity would springboard Will into this present day New York and really make him stand out.

QUESTION: So what are your all-time favorite Christmas movies?

JF: It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Those are the big three but those are the ones you see year after year and that’s our big goal with this. I’ll know if this movie works based on not what it makes at the box-office but [whether] it makes it into the lineup on television.

QUESTION: What are the challenges of making New York City such a standout character in this movie?

JF: A lot of it is getting permission to shoot at these places at a very sensitive time in New York’s history where they don’t necessarily want a film crew in like, the Lincoln Tunnel or on the 59th Street Bridge, or the Empire State Building at Christmas time. I’m from here and I didn’t want to shoot any of the New York streets in Canada. I didn’t want to shoot Christmas in February where I [would have] some art department guy hanging some lights up on a telephone pole. I wanted the real lights and I wanted the real look. We had to shoot before Christmas in December. The city does not stop for anybody and so we had to work around the schedule of the city. There was almost a transit strike and the blizzard was hitting. It worked out all well but it certainly did not make for an easy shoot.

QUESTION: What kind of reaction did you get from people when Will Ferrell walks down the street in an Elf costume?

JF: New Yorkers will refuse to make eye contact because either they’re a weirdo or they want attention and you’re giving it to them. Those people you see walking down the street when he’s first walking down in that Tootsie shot that we have there - those are real people, those aren’t actors. We shot him [Ferrell] in the city. We just hid our camera and let him loose. The people were reacting the way they really would.

QUESTION: Can you talk about why Zooey was a good person to fit with Will?

JF: I thought Zooey was certainly really a good choice because she’s attractive in a very nostalgic [way]. She looks to me, in some of these lighting setups, like some of the old silent movie stars. She has those big dole eyes and alabaster skin. And her voice – she sings like Doris Day. In one sense, she feels very classic but she’s very quirky and an independent film actress. She’s not the obvious choice for the studio. But I felt, in some way, because of her quirkiness and how much she and Will got on in their own quirky ways in real life, that you bought some of the chemistry in the movie. It’s a tough buy that somebody would end up being close enough to this character. That was tricky. I also wanted to use her because the singing was such an important part. I actually added the second number after I heard her sing, and I really wanted to feature that. I felt that that little duet helped bring that storyline along.

QUESTION: Did you have to fight the studio for her?

JF: It certainly wasn’t the obvious choice that popped up on the list first. They want the most obvious people who are the most famous for every role, not just that role. Anytime you go for sort of a unique, different, eclectic choice in casting, they’re going to challenge you on it and it becomes a little bit like horse trading. We ultimately ended up with a cast that I was very, very happy with. I didn’t feel compromised at all.

QUESTION: Is directing a more natural fit for you than acting?

JF: I like it because I’m a bit obsessive. In working with the script, casting the movie, picking locations, and coming up with that kind of stuff, it allows me to make a million little decisions everyday that you’re shooting. Even in post-production, when you get to play with stuff like the animation, music, and the scoring of the orchestra. You get to make a million little choices that ultimately a tone and frame of reference and a feeling for a movie. So in that sense, I think I am well cut out for it because I am pretty decisive.

QUESTION: James Caan has said that he has trouble getting work because a lot of directors are afraid to work with him. What was your experience like?

JF: From the day Jimmy walked on the street, he said, “I don’t want to be called Jimmy Caan. I want to be called ‘The Dream.’ That’s my new nickname. I’m ‘The Dream.’ They called me ‘The Dream’ on this last movie I worked on with Benecio Del Toro.” So I said, “O.K.” We got him a chair that said “The Dream.” He was “The Dream.” The thing with him is that he’s so experienced, and he’s usually right by the way. To my credit, I know when to get out of the way of somebody who knows more than I do. In a lot of cases, Will understood comedy better than I did and Jimmy Caan understood his character better than I did. If I’m going to cast them and they inspire me and they have a good reason for doing what they’re doing, I’ll let them do it.

QUESTION: You have Bob Newhart and Ed Asner in the film, two of the greatest TV icons of all-time. What was it like working with them?

JF: Part of the reason why I cast them was the minute they appear in your movie, you inherit everything they’ve come to represent. Although, they were not obvious pieces of casting either. It’s so strange because with people who don’t understand, sometimes they accuse you of making choices that are stale when in fact, I think in casting people like that, makes the movie more fresh and a little bit more hip because you’re not just casting actors, but you’re casting their whole memory and everything they’ve come to represent. That’s inherited by your movie. So when you see Papa Elf, you inherit his whole sense of humor, his sensibility, his dry delivery. There’s an edginess to both of these guys who are still at the top of their game. There’s an edginess that really fits into the movie and makes the movie cool. So when you see Papa Elf as Bob, and he’s narrating the movie, it immediately makes everybody my age and older, understand that this is type of movie that they’re going to see, and they get it right away. Same thing with Asner. He’s not just the avuncular Santa Claus. He’s cuddly. But when you’re an Elf, he’s the boss. You’re scared of him. He’s come to represent the father figure in the movie. Just as much as [Buddy] is seeking the approval of James Caan, he wants Santa’s approval too, just like Rudolph. And so in casting these two guys, it immediately makes the film feel familiar.

QUESTION: What do you cut out of Dinner of Five and will we see an unedited version of the chats you guys have?

JF: We’re actually releasing a DVD of the first season and I’m going to go back into the old footage because most of the episodes have three hours of raw footage. Not all of it’s good or entertaining. A lot of it is people picking their teeth but we are pulling some segments in and stuff that didn’t make the cut for people who really like it, and [also] for people who can’t get the show, because they can’t get IFC, so NetFlix is distributing it. You can get it from their website or there will be ways to order it.

QUESTION: Is there anybody that hasn’t appeared on the show that you would like to have?

JF: A lot of people. It’s obvious who I’d want. I’d love to have Woody Allen, [Martin] Scorsese…people you’d want to hang out with. I just worked with [Jack] Nicholson. I’d love to have the nerve to ask him. He doesn’t do any press so like he’s going to do an IFC thing?

QUESTION: Did you ever have anybody on your show that surprised you?

JF: [Rod] Steiger was good. I have the upmost respect for him. I think he’s a warm human being and wonderful performer. I was honored to have him on. It was one of his last appearances but it was interesting.