Josh Gad’s biggest regret? Using his real voice for Olaf the snowman

Many actors cite childhood heroes or a desire to inhabit different lives as their motivation, but for Josh Gad, best known as the goofy snowman in Frozen and the hit musical The Book of Mormon, it’s rejection.

As he chronicles in his new memoir In Gad We Trust, he workshopped The Book of Mormon with creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame in its early days before the show’s Broadway debut in 2011. But the producers decided they wanted a celebrity in the role and Gad was cut loose. Obviously, Gad did eventually land the role of Elder Cunningham, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.

Similarly, he was involved in the development of Disney’s 2013 blockbuster Frozen from the outset, through the ups and downs of Olaf being scrapped completely. But ultimately Gad was invaluable to the formation of Frozen’s snowman, including ad-libbing much of his dialogue and positioning Olaf as a child-like persona.

“When I get angry, that’s when I achieve the most. It’s a great catalyst,” Gad says over Zoom from his Los Angeles home. “To have to prove yourself because others doubt you is a universal thing. If you can look at rejection as more of a friend than an enemy, it’s a really healthy way to move forward and not look back. I do find that that is very liberating.”

He says he’s been “very fortunate” that missed opportunities became gains in the end.

“I’ve only just come to peace, in my early forties, with [the fact that] the universe has a way of making everything what it ultimately should be, not what you may want it to be when you’re thinking that this may be your only path.”

In Gad We Trust: A Tell-Some (as opposed to “tell-all”) is a collection of memoir-style essays. In it Gad reveals that rejection and underestimation have been themes of his life. Growing up in Florida in a single-parent home after his father walked out to start a new life — and new family — in Colombia, Gad struggled academically, which seemed more of a symptom of a chaotic family environment, mental health issues and boredom, given he went on to become an award-winning orator in high school before studying drama at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

Gad writes in the book that he does have one regret about his role in what was for a time the highest-grossing animated film of all time (bumped from that honour by The Lion King remake in 2019): using his own voice for Olaf. When placing coffee orders or shopping at the supermarket, unlike many of his peers who have voiced animated characters, he is far too recognisable, particularly by kids who have likely watched Frozen at least two dozen times. (As anyone with kids will confirm, they have never just watched Frozen once.)

Gad has two children of his own – daughters Ava, 14, and Izzy, 11 – and loves that they’re part of the generation that was raised on his characters.

“A story about two sisters in particular speaks on a very personal level to my children, as they navigate their own journey together with, oftentimes, only each other to rely on,” he says. “I love that I get to be a part of something that can be a part of their lives from their earliest memories onwards. As has been brought to my attention, Frozen is oftentimes the first movie that a lot of kids watch. It’s such an amazing honour and a humbling experience.”

It’s also one that he didn’t envision for himself as one of three brothers. “I always just assumed that it was a fait accompli that I would be surrounded by boys. That’s all I ever knew. To be in a house full of estrogen — my wife, my two girls, my female dog, and everybody who works with us — has been eye-opening,” he says.

But he wouldn’t have it any other way, relishing his status as a girl dad. “[Girls are so] clever. They’re so emotionally available. They make me smarter,” he says. “They make me work harder. I’m growing as a dad because I’m having to adapt. I love it because it ultimately brings us closer.”

As for what’s next, he can’t comment on the next Frozen sequel, slated for release in 2027, but confirms that a third instalment of Wolf Like Me, the Australian series in which he starred alongside Isla Fisher, isn’t going ahead at this stage. The joint Stan and Peacock production followed Fisher’s Mary, who has lycanthropy (she shape-shifts into a wolf once a month), and Gad’s Gary, a widower parenting a tween daughter struggling with anxiety.

“That show is fundamentally a metaphor for relationships and parenting,” Gad says. “I looked at my own mother and being a single parent and tried to immerse that point of view into that character. Similarly, the things the character of my daughter is going through was definitely something that opened my eyes to how you handle — or not how you handle — these seismic events in a child’s life.”

The story also mirrors Gad’s own experience with anxiety, as well as dealing with his parents’ divorce, his mum’s resulting depression and his battles with weight and food, which he writes revealingly about in In Gad We Trust.

“It was not easy for me to … be like, ‘hey guys, let’s go deep into Josh Gad’s pain’. But what I realised early on was that there’s no reason to do this if I’m not going to be as honest and as vulnerable as possible,” he says. “Even though the book is called a ‘tell-some’ — more for comedic purposes — what it really amounts to is that there isn’t much left to know about me after [reading] this thing that could otherwise be called a diary.”

But he wanted to include funny and happy stories to balance out the “touchstones of emotional stress”, he says. “Because people are having so much fun along the way, they’re able to embrace those moments much more fully because it sneaks up on them.”

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That includes fond memories of studying at NIDA in his youth, when he would use his weekends to sojourn around Australia from the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsundays to Darwin and the Blue Mountains (making him more well-travelled than I am!).

“Australia, in many ways, is my second home. I love Aussie culture. I love the laid-back [attitude] and prioritising life over work; joy over frustration,” he says, name-checking Nicole Kidman and NIDA alumnus Cate Blanchett as actresses he admires. “That’s why, when [considering] where to study for my semester abroad, I chose Australia over England or other places because there’s something in the water there.”

Gad says he might be shooting something here later in the year, and hasn’t completely ruled out revisiting Wolf Like Me.

“Never say never. We would love to revisit this at some point, and the response from viewers was effusive,” he says. “We’ll see.”

Josh Gad’s In Gad We Trust (Simon & Schuster), is out now.