Josh Gad opened up about a sexuality controversy hovering over his performance as LeFou in the 2017 live-action Disney film Beauty and the Beast.
The 43-year-old actor’s character was friends with the character Gaston, played by Luke Evans in the film, which also starred Emma Watson, Dan Stevens and Kevin Kline, and was directed by Bill Condon.
Condon, who is promoting the film through the outlet Attitude In 2017, moviegoers said they finally saw “a fun, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie,” but it turned out to be a short sequence of Gad’s LeFou dancing with a man.
“I mean, if I was gay, I’d probably be pissed,” Gad said in his new book about the audience’s reaction to the scene. In Gad we trust, Entertainment weekly They reported this after publishing excerpts from the book, which was released on Tuesday.
The Hollywood, Florida native said in the book that he felt the character was too peripheral and the scene too short to live up to the director’s hype.
“I certainly didn’t feel like LeFou was the person the gay community had been wistfully waiting for,” said Gad, who has been married to his wife Ida Darvish since 2008. “I can’t quite imagine a Pride celebration in honor of it. of the ‘cinematic turning point’ where a quasi-mean Disney sidekick dances with a man for half a second.’
Josh Gad opened up about a sexuality controversy hovering over his performance in the 2017 live-action Disney film Beauty and the Beast. Pictured Tuesday in NYC
Gad, who provides the voice of Olaf in the Frozen films, described a “casual (but ultimately seismic) conversation” he had with Condon and screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos during the production of the Disney film.
The conversation was “about the specific nature of LeFou’s commitment to Gaston,” Gad said, adding that “over the course of our conversations, we tried to discern whether or not LeFou loved Gaston or was in love with Gaston.”
The employees who eventually came to LeFou’s side were truly in awe of Gaston, and that was not driven by any sexual desire, but rather by a deep-seated love, appreciation and belief in this person who was by his side for many years served in battle. years,” Gad said in the book.
The group came to the consensus that LeFou’s sexual preferences were a crucial aspect “to really explore in any comedic character in the film.”
‘Being a side character, I didn’t want to suddenly put the weight of sexuality on this character who in no way drove the film, but the moment (as described to me) seemed innocent enough – a nice blink-and-you’ll missing it.’
Of the reaction, he said: ‘Everyone looked at each other and said, “Wait, that’s it? That’s what it was all about?”
Gad made it clear that during the film’s production it was not made clear to him that the character’s sexuality would be an important aspect of the film.
“Never was the moment in this movie described to me as something we would hang a lantern on and pat ourselves on the back for,” Gad wrote. “If I had, I would never have agreed to this seemingly sweet and harmless moment. It was both too little and not enough to be more than it was.”
Gad made it clear that during the film’s production it was not made clear to him that the character’s sexuality would be an important aspect of the film.
Gad’s character is friends with the Gaston character played by Luke Evans (L) in the film
Condon said in the March 2017 interview, “LeFou is someone who wants to be Gaston one day and kiss Gaston the next.
‘He doesn’t know what he wants… and Josh turns it into something very subtle and wonderful. And that’s what ultimately pays off, and I don’t want to give that away.”
Condon, who is openly gay, “felt terrible” about the publicity over his comments, Gad said in the book, because “no one wanted to discuss it” without the “exclusively gay moment.”
Gad, who also appeared in The Book of Mormon on Broadway, said he “would have been thrilled” if “audiences described it as a sweet exclusively gay moment,” but Condon’s hype of the moment set the bar too high.
“From the moment we pointed it out and seemingly congratulated ourselves,” Gad said, “we raised hell and fury.”
The film was a box office hit upon its release in March 2017, earning over $1.26 billion worldwide, including $504 million in domestic revenue, on a budget of $300 million.
It also received a pair of Oscar nods in 2018, for Best Achievement in Costume Design and Best Achievement in Production Design.