Andy Richter Reveals Most of Elf Was Filmed Inside a Working Mental Hospital

Elf has been a holiday staple since 2003, but a new revelation from co-star Andy Richter changes how you’ll watch it forever. Richter told Us Weekly that nearly all of the film’s interior scenes, including the Hobbs’home, the offices, and the mailroom, were shot in spare wings of Riverview Hospital, a mental hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia, that still had patients during production. The reason was pure Hollywood logistics: a major vampire movie had booked up studios and locations around Vancouver, leaving the Elf crew to find space wherever it could.