Frozen star Josh Gad on why Olaf is the gift keeps giving, Artemis Fowl and the future of cinema
Frozen star Josh Gad is on a mission to bring joy with the loveable snowman Olaf, reuniting movie legends and two new projects β but heβd still rather be at the movies.
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Josh Gad wants to bring a little joy into your life in these dark times.
The US Broadway actor turned film star, best known for his roles in Beauty and the Beast, Murder On the Orient Express and as the voice of Olaf in Frozen, has been using his time in coronavirus-induced lockdown more wisely than most.
Last month, the father of two recorded the song I Am With You as the loveable snowman from Disney’s animated hit movies to raise the spirits of children around the world who might be feeling anxious about the pandemic and Gad says it was “an amazing thing” to see just how much the character means to so many people.
“I love that little guy,” says Gad with a laugh. “He really does provide so many, including me, with such joy.”
He also launched the YouTube series Reunited Apart, which brought together the casts of some his favourite films including The Goonies, Back To the Future and the Lord Of the Rings trilogy to raise money for charities and put a smile the faces of fans missing the big-screen movie experience.
“I know how desperate I am for any bits of joy right now and escapism at a time when everything seems so bleak,” he says.
“It’s important to have something to hold on to and smile at and have a proverbial light in the midst of the darkness. And anything that I can do – and it’s my job to entertain – I am grateful to do and I hope it’s making a difference.”
With cinemas still shuttered while social distancing measures are in place, Gad is also making his presence felt on the small screen thanks to his new musical Central Park, which dropped on Apple TV+ last week, and Artemis Fowl, which comes to Disney+ this Friday.
The latter project – Kenneth Branagh’s $185 million film adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s best-selling young adult series about a young criminal genius who becomes embroiled in a hidden world of fairies and other mystical creatures – is one of the highest profile films to pivot from a cinema to a streaming release. As a film buff, Gad admits he has mixed feelings about the switch.
“You won’t find a bigger fan of cinema – and I will be among the first to go back to the movie theatre once this nightmare is over,” he says.
“Having said that, I am a parent and I have two kids and I am beyond grateful for things like Artemis Fowl that I can share at home at a time when you are risking your health by going to public spaces. I wish that weren’t the case but the reality is such that I think we need more not less content that we can bring home and share.”
Artemis Fowl, in which Gad plays the tunnelling, thieving, conman dwarf Mulch Diggums, is Gad’s second film with the Oscar-nominated Branagh after 2017’s Murder On the Orient Express. The actor wasn’t familiar with the series of books, described by the author as “Die Hard with fairies”, but jumped at the chance to once again team up with a director whose work he had pored over while studying to be an actor. As an added bonus, Orient Express co-star Judi Dench was also coming along for the ride, playing the gruff head of the fairy spy service known as LEPrecon.
“I love that woman more than words,” says Gad with a sigh
“We have had such a tremendous relationship and to be at a point in my career where I can say I worked with Dame Judi Dench twice is crazy. I grew up studying her – and Kenneth for that matter – going to Carnegie Mellon (College Of Fine Arts) and then NIDA in Australia, you actually watch things like Hamlet and Henry V and you watch videos of them bringing Shakespearean characters to life while studying the works of the Bard. So, it was an amazing thing to come full circle from studying these people to getting to call them my collaborators.”
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Inspired by the roll call of Aussie actors such as Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman dominating Hollywood at the turn of the millennium, Gad chose Sydney’s revered National Institute of the Dramatic Arts over London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and a drama school in Moscow for a semester as an exchange student in 2002.
“I wanted to see what the hell was in the water,” he says.
“I felt like at that time, NIDA was the most interesting. So, I went and everything I had learned up to that point studying at Carnegie Mellon for three years finally clicked into place because it was a really palatable and easy thing to take in and understand process-wise.”
Gad’s first big breaks came in musical theatre, first with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and then originating the role of Elder Cunningham in the Broadway production of The Book Of Mormon.
While he’s been able to showcase those singing skills for the big screen in Frozen and Beauty and the Beast, with Central Park he was able to fulfil a lifelong goal in creating a musical for television.
“Central Park was the culmination of so many things that I love,” he says of the rave-reviewed animated comedy, which has already been renewed for a second season.
“I didn’t want to just do a show with music and I didn’t want to do a show spoofing music, I wanted to do a real musical in every sense of the word. I went to the brilliant creator of Bob’s Burgers, Loren Bouchard and pitched him this idea. I told him I wanted to set it in Central Park – one of my favourite parts of one of my favourite cities and together over the course of the last two years we have brought it to life.”
He’s also excited for a second season of Armando Iannucci’s space comedy Avenue 5. Gad’s hilarious Hermann Judd, owner of the titular lost, luxury, interplanetary cruise ship was one of the highlights of the first season and now seems eerily prescient in terms of having an incompetent, privileged narcissist in charge of a crisis.
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“Well, you’re getting plenty of that on CNN every night,” Gad says with a rueful chuckle.
“I would definitely tell you I could not be more excited to do more Avenue 5. The plan was already to do a season two, it was picked up right before season one ended. The plan was to start shooting in London this summer. Obviously things are changing as is the case with everything right now but I know that Armando and his team have been cooking up new scripts so hopefully we will be able to get back to set soon and start shooting.”
Artemis Fowl streams on Disney+ from Friday. Central Park is now streaming on Apple TV+. Avenue 5 is now streaming on Binge.