They looked at me as if I slaughtered a cow in front of them
He was nominated for a Tony for being in the original cast of the widely successful Broadway musical The Book Of Mormon.
He was the sentient, singing snowman in mega-hit Frozen
he was a correspondent for The Daily Show and now
Genuine, honest-to-God triple threat Josh Gad is starring as Disney's first openly gay character LeFou in the live action remake of Beauty and the Beast
It has been a long road to success for Gad, which included a stint here in Australia when he was younger studying at NIDA, and not all of that journey has been all that easy
Josh thanks so much for talking to us
My pleasure, thank you
So the performers life you have successes and you have things that don't work out so well and I was listening to a fascinating story about your attempt to audition for Juilliard
The musical school, why was it so bad? Why was it such a bad audition, what happened?
Pride
Pride? Right
Right, like ....
what happened was I went in there and you have to do two monologues. You have to do
a modern piece and you have to do a Shakespeare or a classical piece
And I was like 'oh I'm going to blow their minds, Juilliard ain't ever seen anything like this'.
And the response was one of violent silence
They looked at me as if I slaughtered a cow in front of them
And I don't know if you've seen anyone improv Shakespeare before, but I literally forgot all of the lines and started improvising in verse
I said after it ended 'I'll just show myself out'
But it was a good lesson. I was sort of like 'you don't have the talent yet or the skill to not be humble or modest about what you do
I was fortunate enough to go to Carnegie Mellon which was a fantastic school and equally fortunate to study at NIDA here
My time in Australia really suddenly made everything click for me because the approach to drama here
had a practicality to it that was accessible to me.. I understood ...
I understood what I had to do
After years of playing Book Of Mormon on Broadway, I was wondering do you ever miss the nightly applause?
Everyday
What can you do to get it back?
I pay people to applaud me when I walk into a room
That seems like a worthwhile expense
Yeah and it works
Definitely a tax deduction of sometime I'm sure
I'll tell you what, Beauty and the Beast comes closest to it
It's pretty insane to now watch this movie and the audience suddenly erupts at the end of Gaston as if we're going to jump out of the screen and bow
You should, just one screening - just leap out of the screen and see what happens
You're of the right age, what was the Disney movie of that Golden Age that meant the most to you
Okay, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Lion King all hold a very special place in my heart. Having said that -
You've couched this very carefully, okay
Aladdin
Right, what was it about Aladdin
Robin Williams as the genie ... it was one of those performances that
leaves this indelible mark on your childhood
You can't shake it. I saw that movie probably 5 - 10 times in the theatre because it was one of the greatest special effects I've ever seen
What he did with his voice, what he did to bring this otherworldy energy to that character
It was monumental for me
And it really did leave this mark that I think in many ways informed my choices as Olaf in Frozen
And I was very fortunate because when I was doing Book Of Mormon Robin and I were living in the same building
and I got to thank him personally
And what did he say?
He goes 'who are you?'
'I don't know what you want from me'. And he wrote me one of the loveliest letters I have ever received.
I have it at home, It's personal but um.. it was amazing to get to come full circle and
to say that to an icon
Breaking news just in to CNN, is that actor Robin Williams is dead at the age of 63
I have personally never witnessed - other than very few times - the loss, the sudden loss
of an entertainment icon leave that kind of wake in its path
Robin's work will live on long after most of us are gone and I think that's the greatest thing you can hope for as a performer
Earlier this year you marched in the Women's March in London I understand. Why was that important for you to do?
First and foremost I have two daughters. I want them to grow up in a world where there are no glass ceilings to shatter
I think now more than ever
there is a real need not only equal opportunity for women
but equal opportunity period
I think it's one of the many things I love about Beauty and the Beast: at the core you have this incredibly powerful
female lead that is fiercely independent, intelligent
her superpower is she reads non-stop
I can't tell you how thrilling that is to be able to share that with my girls
On the other end of the spectrum you have a character like Gaston he feeds on prejudice
he feeds on fear, he uses that fear to stimulate a group of people
who have never met this person that they're afraid of that have this seed that's planted in his head that because he's different he's dangerous
That today is unfortunately as relevant it was when the piece was written 300 years ago
I'm mostly impressed at your ability to get through that whole thing without saying Trump
Who?
I don't know, I don't know who we're talking about at all. I'm actually impressed. Josh, nice to talk to you