Josh Gad and Emmy Raver-Lampman on Central Park’s boldness to tackle issues head on

Josh Gad says the new season of his animated series is bolder and more ambitious than before.

Central Park season three is streaming now. Picture: Apple TV+

Emmy Raver-Lampman had an unusual baptism into the world of Central Park.

Cast for the second season of the Apple TV+ animated series, Raver-Lampman didn’t expect to be singing into a pillow in a locked Sydney hotel room, 12,000kms from the LA studio she had envisaged for her first voice role.

“The glamorous life!” she laughed. “Honestly, I was desperate for something to do because I was getting sick of myself. I was happy to log onto a Zoom recording session to do something else than just stare at the walls going crazy.”

The Umbrella Academy and Hamilton alum was serving quarantine in late-2020 as she prepared to film the Liam Neeson actioner Blacklight. She had only months earlier been cast as Molly, the teen daughter of the Tillerman family who lives in the middle of New York’s famed Central Park and whose battles big and small range from greedy developers to the awkwardness of puberty.

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Emmy Raver-Lampman voices Molly on Central Park. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images)

The musical series, now in its third season, had become – like many other works of pop culture – a target in a swirling Black Lives Matter conversation about representation. Whose story gets to be told and who gets to tell that story?

Molly is a biracial character, the daughter of Owen (voiced by Leslie Odom Jr) and Paige (Kathryn Hahn). She was originally voiced by Kristen Bell, who is white, and in the reckoning of 2020’s social movements, the role was recast with Raver-Lampman.

Gad, who also co-created the series as well as voicing Birdie the busker/narrator, told news.com.au that Raver-Lampman joining the show lit a fire under the show’s creative team.

“When Emmy signed on, she inspired us in a way,” Gad said. “Season two kind of became Molly-focused in a very good and interesting way. Season three was an invitation off of that and some of the socially relevant issues that we wanted to tap into – and to really embrace the challenge and the acceptance of our audience [to those issues].”

Central Park is a socially conscious animated musical series. Picture: Apple TV+

By exploring those deeper themes through Molly’s character – such as getting her first period, and this season, conversations around racism and biracial hair – the series now feels bolder as it takes on those issues more generally.

Raver-Lampman said: “It doesn’t shy away from these really important conversations, but it does so with a lightness.

“That’s not taking away from the seriousness of the topics that are being discussed but it finds a way of beautifully normalising these conversations and making them seem less daunting than they sometimes can be for young people.”

That daring to do more, to be more and for Central Park to be part of a wider social conversation, extended to the cast as well. Gad revealed Odom Jr called him one day during the third season’s preproduction and said he felt the series was at a point where it could now tackle the issue of race head-on.

Josh Gad is best known for his voice work on Frozen. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

“And it made me so proud because I could say to him, ‘This is the episode that we’re working on right now, this is what we’re doing’. And it was like, nothing needed to be said because we were already all on the same page,” Gad recalled.

“It was so incredible knowing that our cast felt like they were also ready to take this show to the next level and embrace things.

“This is the most exceptional season of TV we’ve ever done because it’s the culmination of everything we’ve been building towards. And our cast is now such a well-oiled machine that they can embrace the challenges, both vocally and thematically, and they know these characters inside and out.

“It makes the opportunity of exploring some of these richer ideas that much more doable at this point.”

Central Park is on Apple TV+

Originally published as Josh Gad and Emmy Raver-Lampman on Central Park’s boldness to tackle issues head on