Fresh Air - Andrew Rannells & Josh Gad look back on 15 years of ‘Book of Mormon’

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Fifteen years after ‘The Book of Mormon’ made its Broadway debut, original cast members Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad once again took the stage as Mormon missionaries — this time at the 2026 Tony Awards. Created and written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the duo behind ‘South Park’), along with veteran Broadway composer Robert Lopez, ‘The Book of Mormon’ follows two young missionaries sent to try and bring Mormonism to a Ugandan village. The musical is a satirical — sometimes affectionate, sometimes offensive — look at Mormonism and youthful naïveté. Rannells and Gad spoke with Terry Gross about their first impressions of the show, mishaps onstage, and regretting their decision to leave when they did. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. This week, the Book of Mormon is celebrating its 15th anniversary on Broadway. It received nine Tonys, including Best Musical and Best Score. My guests were two of the stars of the original Broadway cast, Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad. They're back this week, making cameo appearances in every show as part of the anniversary celebration. Several other members of the original cast, as well as the show's creators, will be more. making cameos too. Rannos was still in the Book of Mormon when he started shooting girls as the character Elijah, Hannah's good friend. He was in the Broadway productions of Jersey Boys, hairspray, and falsettos, and is now starring with Alice and Janney in the new HBO movie, Miss You Love You. Josh Gad was one of the lead voices in Frozen as Olaf the Snowman, and that animated film became a phenomenon. He's currently planning to direct a Chris Farrow biopic. The book of Mormon revolves around two young Mormon men who are very excited that they've reached the age where they're assigned to a mission. They're hoping to be sent to an exciting,

beautiful place, but they're assigned to Uganda, which is dealing with the AIDS epidemic, war and famine. The show is a satirical, but kind of affectionate, but could also be considered kind of offensive, look at Mormon beliefs and the naivete of some young men. It was created and written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, along with Robert Lopez, who co-wrote the songs for Frozen and Avenue Q. A 15th anniversary remastered edition of the original Book of Mormon cast recording, along with new liner notes and photos, will be released later this month. Let's start with the opening song, Hello, as the young missionaries are being trained on how to go door-to-door proselytizing. We'll hear the opening of the song featuring Rannels and

the conclusion of the song featuring Josh Gad. Hello. My name is Elder Price, and I would like to share with you the most amazing book. Hello, my name is Elder Grant. It's a book about America a long, long time ago. It has so many awesome parts. You simply won't believe how much this book can change your life. Hello.

Hello, would you like to change religions ever? free book written by Jesus. No, no, Elder Cunningham. That's not how we do it. You're making things up again. Just stick to the approved dialogue. Hello. Hello!

We'd like to share with you this book of Jesus Christ. Hello. Josh Gad, Andrew Reynolds. Welcome back to Fresh Air. Congratulations on the 15th anniversary. Thank you. Thanks for having us back. I'm delighted to have you here.

I love that song. I think it's a great. opening to the show. I'm wondering, since it's all about two missionaries training to go door to door, did you have people coming to your door when you were growing up, who were Mormons, trying to convert you? I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and there is a pretty large Mormon population there, as well as a large Jehovah's Witness population. So we did. But I grew up extremely Catholic. And not that we weren't kind to these young people when they came to the door. But it was, I think it was something that we were

definitely warned about. If my mother saw these people like coming up, the steps should be like, oh boy, here they come. Did you ever let them in? Oh, no. We weren't having it. Did you try to convert them? No, we didn't go far either. I think she was just like, oh, we're Catholic and, you know, but thanks for stopping

by. And, Josh, what about you? I grew up in South Florida, and Hollywood, Florida, did not have many Mormons, from what I remember, knocking on our door. It was only sort of later, going into the process of Book of Mormon, actually, I did not know a lot about the Mormon church. I had to sort of research a lot about it. Terry, I do just very quickly, when we were in rehearsals for the workshop, I decided that I should be a real, like a good little actor, and I should go to the Mormon temple.

I remember this. And I should meet with some Mormon missionaries. So I got myself ensnared in a very strange relationship with these two young men who I met with a handful of times. And they were so excited that someone wanted to talk to them and that I solicited them. And then they said, can we come to your home? And I lived with my boyfriend at the time. and the apartment was like, it was pretty clear two gay men lived there. I mean, it was like, real, like, mid-century off the charts, you know what I'm saying?

And I, so I was like, you know what, let's let them come in. So these two Mormon missionaries came over, and there's like immediately, there's like a picture of my boyfriend and I, like, on the mantle. And so I had to explain to them that I was like, I'm actually in a musical about the Mormon church. and they were sort of shocked. But then it was so helpful because they really opened up to me about how scary and disappointing it was to be a missionary at times. And especially being a missionary at New York City. They were like, no one will speak to us. People are very mean to us.

And then I was like, well, where are you hanging out? They're like, well, they send us to Times Square. And I was like, well, you've got to get out of Times Square. You cannot be hanging out in Times Square, boys. However, your voices changed in the past 15 years. You've sung a lot, you've done a lot, you're older. I was insulted yesterday when our producer came up to me and said, you sound so much better than you did back when you first did it.

Really? Yes. And I was like, what? Did I really not sound good when I first did it? No, you sounded great. You can tell me now, Andrew. No, you sounded fantastic. Well, you don't know how to, is that a compliment or an insult?

Well, that's what I'm wondering. I think you sound the same. I mean, look, our voices are different. 15 years. You know, there's a lot of wear and tear. You know, some of it is muscle memory. I would say some of it comes back. I got to perform this number, I believe, on Stephen Colbert show.

That was the number that I sang on the Tony Awards. It sounded fantastic. Well, that's very nice. But that weirdly, as we were rehearsing it, like, it was still somewhere, like, lodged in my voice. And I think you're having a similar... Same thing. When I found out I was doing this, I played the album in the car and I started to sing along.

And some of those high notes, I just was like, oh, my God, I can't. How am I going to hit these? And I actually asked them to lower it and they laughed and said no. And then I started to sort of do it on my feet. And just like you said, something clicks and it all sort of like, it's like riding a bike. It's just sort of in there somewhere. Now the physical side of it, Terry, is a little different. Yeah.

Physically doing some of these numbers, that's where the aging process really catches up to you. You mean like you can't sing as much as long? Well, you can't, I can't dance as much as I used to. The singing part is a little easier to control. The physical, the knees, the getting up and down off the ground, that's all a little bit different. Although you're lucky. You don't have to do any of the big dance numbers. That's not a coincidence.

I said no to all of those. say no to that. They were like, do you want to do this big dance number? And I said, no, thank you. When you first read the book for the Book of Mormon and then heard the songs, what was her reaction? Because depending on who you are, it's hilarious or incredibly offensive. You know, the script changed so heavily. And I don't know what this says about me that I remember reading it when I was auditioning for the show and not being phased by. any of it and just sort of like, okay, that sounds great. And then because I was, I'm playing this Mormon missionary who is shocked by all of these things that are being said. So it was very easy to sort of, you know, to play that part because a lot of it is sort of shocking and is not your typical musical theater fair. I heard the humor in it and I felt very confident that

people were going to think it was funny. I certainly didn't think it would be still running on Broadway after 15 years and would have toured to Salt Lake City I didn't think that they would have done that but it did I was involved from the very first workshop and I remember getting a demo and the first song I heard

I laughed my butt off it was hello bum bum bum bum bum bum second song was two by two we're marching door to door and these songs were just so fun and then I got to a song called Hasediga Ibawhi

And at that point, I called my agent at the time, and I said, I don't think I can do this show. And he said, why? And I said, because I don't want to get killed. So, you know, with Hasediga Ibawe, it's like Hakuna Matata from the Lion King. And, you know, a general in Uganda sings it. And he's saying, you know, like when things are really bad, there's famine, there's war. everybody has AIDS. But when we think about that, we lift our hands to the sky and we sing Hase Diga Iboe.

And you're expecting that that's going to be a really inspirational phrase. But what that really means is, you know, it's an expletive addressed to God. And there are so many people who will never get past that, I'm sure. and Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the show, along with Robert Lopez, when I interviewed them, they said, that's the point where you know, like, who's in and who is out. That is true. That is true. I guess my answer would be, I'm shocked 15 years later at how many people are in. Well, but I think it speaks to people who are having, you know, there are horrible things that are happening around them, horrible things that are happening.

to them, and it speaks to this fear of the absence of God in those moments. So I think Trey and Matt and Bobby have written something that I think really pulls from like a deep truth that a lot or a deep fear that people have, which is, is there a God? Where has God gone? And it's set to this really sort of playful animated music. but the question is, is there a God in this place? I think it was a few years ago that the black actors in the cast, the actors who play the people in Uganda,

they requested revisions in the script because, well, you can tell me more. I mean, they thought that the characters were depicted in a condescending or offensive way. Can you tell us what kind of changes were requested and what kind of changes were made? Well, you know, this was long after Josh and I had left the production. So we were not a part of these conversations.

But we did have this conversation with one of the original cast members just yesterday, in fact. And I think an important thing that he brought up was while we were developing this show when this whole original cast was, you know, we were a part of the creation, We witnessed the writing changes. Trey and Matt and Bobby were explaining sort of where these things were coming from or we were a part of creating them.

And I think, unfortunately, the context of a lot of these things that we do in the show were not correctly passed on to the people who then continued with the show. So years after we had created it, it became sort of this odd game of telephone where people would come into the show and they were told, well, we just. do this and we just say this and they were never given the context. So, you know, rightly so, people had questions and people wanted answers about, you know, why are we doing this? And why did anyone think this was funny? And so some of it was specifically, I can't tell you what exactly was changed. But I think that the larger conversation that was started was about how it was created and where it came from. So let's hear some music. I want to start with I believe. And that's like your big showpiece, Andrew. And so I want you to describe

the context of the song. The context of the song, I mean, Bobby Lopez has been very open about. It was it was very much inspired by the song, I have confidence from the sound of music, that it is, it's Elder Price sort of building, of my character, Elder Price, sort of building himself up to go back out and sort of reaffirm his faith and he's going to double down on this and he's going to go and try to convert these people in Uganda after, you know, he arrives and nothing is going the way he wants it to or the way he hoped it would and he feels very beaten down. But then he has this moment where he decides, I can do this. I can do this.

And I'm going to start with the village warlord. that's going to be my guy. And I'm going to start with that guy. And if I can convert him, then everybody else will fall into place. And so most of the song is him building himself up to do this. So let's hear Andrew Reynolds from the original cast recording of the Book of Mormon singing, I believe. I've always long to help the needy to do the things I never dared. This was the time for me to step up.

So then why was I so scared? A warlord who shoots people in the face? What's so scary about that? I must trust that my lord is mightier and always has my back. Now I must be completely devout. I can't have even one shred of doubt. I believe that the Lord God created the universe.

I believe that he's so. said his only son to die for my sins, and I hail to America. You cannot just believe partway. You have to believe in it all. My problem was doubting the Lord's will instead of standing tall. I can't allow myself to have any doubt. It's time to set my worries free. Time to show the world what Elder Price is about and share the power inside of...

So that was Andrew Randall's from. from the original cast recording of the Book of Mormon singing, I believe. There's some really high notes in that. Yeah. And I know one night you lost your voice right before singing it and you managed to get through this song.

That happened many times, but you do a show eight times a week. You lost your voice on stage many times? I mean, yeah, over the course of my career, that's something that happens, I mean, not just in the Book of Mormon, but in other shows. Like you learn to sing through.

through sickness and you learn to sing through. I mean, there are nights where there are certain notes missing in your voice all of a sudden, and you don't find out until you're on stage in front of 1,200 people, and you're like, oh, boy. And you just have to figure out a way to sing around it. But it was, you know, after previews, after opening, after the Tony Awards, I hadn't missed any performances. And, you know, I started my career as a replacement as an understudy. I just, I was not accustomed to the idea that I could call out of a show.

And I probably shouldn't have done the show that night. But I remember it was like a couple weeks after the Tony Awards. And I sang this duet that Josh and I sang called You and Me, but mostly me. And it was kind of a disaster. But I just continued. I just continued with the show. And I was like, I'm going to try to make this work. It was actually remarkable to watch.

But then by the, I don't know, I pulled. that very deep out of my soul and I got through I believe somehow and like sang the whole thing and I amazed myself that I could do it and then I got to another song

that's called Orlando I don't know if you remember this Josh and it's supposed to end with a little falsetto thing where I say and I'll never go back to and I'm supposed to go heo

and instead I went never go back to you and the curtain flew up and all the missionaries come out and everyone was laughing then after the boughs that night I walked off stage and I

I remember Karen Moore our stage manager was standing there and I burst into tears and I said I have to miss a show and she said you're allowed to miss a show and I just like cried and cried about it it was so yeah it had never occurred to me

I sometimes get laryngitis when I get a cold. And I had laryngitis just a few weeks ago. And I always say to myself, your voice will come back. But there's a little part of my brain saying, what if it doesn't? Absolutely. Do you go through that? Absolutely. Or when your voice is low and all of a sudden you sound like Kathleen Turner and you're like, is it, will it always sound like this?

Do you remember when I had laryngitis opening night of Gutenberg? Yes. Josh got very sick when we did Gudenberg. And we call it Dr. Footlights on Broadway. You can sound terrible, and then all of a sudden you get on stage. And something adrenaline happens. And Josh got through this whole two-person show that we did with a lot of music in it. And you just did it.

There was no. There was no option. There was no option. Opening night, two-person show. Not many options. My guests are Josh Gad and Andrew Ranels. They start on the original cast of the Book of Morales. Mormon. This week as part of the show's 15th anniversary on Broadway, Rannels and Gadd are making

cameo appearances in every performance. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nesper, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe at w-h-y-y-y-org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning.

Well, Josh, let's hear your big number in the show, and this is Man Up. Do you want to explain the context? Yeah, so, you know, for all of Act 1, Cunningham, a follower, self-described follower. And he really looks to... A follower, yeah, I mean, of Elder Price. You're like, of Elder Price. And he's the lead. And he actually, you know, there's a duet with the two of them called You and Me, but mostly me, where Elder Price sings about the fact that this is really his journey. And Elder

Cunningham can be a sidekick on that journey. He can, you know, have a small little part of that journey, but he just basically needs to stay out of Price's way and follow. And Elder Cunningham is very happy to do that because he's never had somebody who will actually not leave and abandon him. And then something happens over the course of the first act. And Cunningham finds that he's been abandoned again. But for the first time in his life, he has somebody in the form of this character, Nabilungi, who's one of the villagers, and she basically tells him, hey, why don't you take the mantle? Why don't you show us the way forward? And this sparks a light bulb moment in Cunningham. And he decides that for the first time in his life,

he has an opportunity to take the reins to step from the role of sidekick into the role of the main star. And so this song is that sort of culmination of that journey. Let's listen to it. What did Jesus do when they sentenced him to die? Did he try to run away? Did he just break down and cry? No, Jesus dug down deep knowing what he had to do. When Faye, when Faisers, with his own death Jesus knew that he had to man up he had to man up

so he crawled up on that cross and he stuck it out and manned up Christ he manned up and taught us all what we is about now it's up to me

Jesus had his copy now it's fine a man up So, Josh, do you hear a little bit of footloose in that song? I've never thought about that until now. Yeah, it's definitely, well, it's got a very 80s quality to it. I remember from the very first workshop that song existed. And actually, the very first workshop we did, Trey Matt and Bobby had not written any of Act 2. So the show just literally ended with Man Up, but it wasn't an ensemble.

It was just me. And it ended with me basically being like, Man Up! And that was it. And they were like, we went to black. And so it, you know, it evolved into what it evolved into. But, you know, the influences of each of these songs, including Man Up, comes from a place of absolute weird devotion to musical theater on the part of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Obviously, Bobby Lopez comes from that world.

But when you look at Trey and Matt, the first thing you think of is not necessarily like musical theater acumen. And these are two guys that people forget when they wrote South Park Bigger, Longer, Uncut, the feature film adaptation of the Comedy Central show, they got a letter from Steven Sondheim, who's been. probably the most acclaimed composer and lyricist of the 20th century. And he basically said, this is one of the top 10 most brilliantly realized musicals he's ever seen. And I really do think that part of the reason the reason the show endures is because each one of these songs is instantaneously hummable.

Each one of these songs, you say footloose in the case of man up, but each one of these songs reminds you of something, but it's never pastiche. It's never sort of making fun of a genre. It is fully embracing it and earning its space. So you have an 11 o'clock number, and I believe that is as powerful, potent, and as mesmerizing and memorable as an 11 o'clock number

from guys and dolls. Well, I think, and a lot of people would come to see the Book of Mormon and say, I don't really like musicals, but I do like this one. Which is always funny to me, because every number was, I don't want to say a rip-off, but was a tribute.

There's so much. Yeah, you and me, but mostly me, is essentially the wizard and I from Wicked. Turn it off. What's turn it off? Don't ask me that one. No, but then like the pageant at the end of... King and I. That's from the King and I.

Like, they built in all of these moments. Hacadigua, Kuna Matata. One of them is kind of like, you got trouble from the music man. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the All-American Prophet. Yeah, absolutely. My guests are Andrew Rannels and Josh Gadd. They start on the original cast of the Book of Mormon.

This week is part of the show's 15th anniversary on Broadway. Rannels and Gad are making cameo. appearances in every performance. We'll be right back. This is fresh air. So since we're talking about the book of Mormon, tell me if you grew up with religion. Well, Andrew, I know you did. You grew up very Catholic. Very Catholic. But I'm going to ask you to tell a story which you write about in your memoir. Sure. About how when you were, I think, 16 and in high school, you were seeing somebody who was in their 40s, who was 40, and was involved with, I think it was a director of community theater. That's right.

And you felt like you had to tell somebody about this, that there's something that didn't seem right. And so you spoke to, of all people, your priest, can you tell us what happened? Sure. Well, first, let me clarify that the relationship, if you'd like to call it that, the situation that I was in with this older man was one that I felt very trapped in. and I felt that I had been trapped in this situation by this man in his 40s. I was 16 years old.

I didn't quite know how to get out of it. I didn't feel confident that I could talk to my parents about it. I didn't really feel like I had any friends that I could talk to about it. And I went to an all-boys Catholic school, and I decided in confession one day to tell this priest who is also a teacher of mine that I really trusted and really liked about this. relationship in the hopes that he could maybe give me some guidance to get out of it. And at the end of the confession, he gave me a hug and then he kissed me, but not like a

simple kiss, like a full, like open mouth kiss. And then that continued for a couple years that that priest then felt like he had an open door to do that to me, which was wild that that's how I, and maybe that's why, Terry, when I read the script of the Book of Mormon, and I was like, well, I don't really have a problem with satirizing religion, because I don't know if I have the greatest relationship with it myself. It's a very me-to kind of story. Yeah, yeah. Did you leave, well, you can leave, you can stop going to Sunday services.

you can't stop going to school. Did you tell anyone in the school or tell your parents? No, no. I told my parents later, and I told when my first book Too Much Is Not Enough came out, then the school did reach out to me and ask about it. Did they? They did. They did?

What did they say and what did you say? They asked who it was, and I told them specifically which priest it was, And nothing was done about it. It was not like there was any... There was no consequences to it. But they just wanted to know. And, you know, looking back, of course, there were a ton of people I could have talked to about this.

There were adults all around me that I could have trusted. Yeah, but as a kid, no. And you feel like I felt like at 16, then 17, that, like, I should know better. I should know how to do this. I'm an adult, right? And it's a hard thing with kids. You know, Josh and I both have kids who are, you know, teenagers.

There are going to be moments like that that they will go through that they might not share with us. And I think that's been the real trick recently is trying to figure out what kind of language can you use with your kids or with nieces and nephews that I am a safe place to come to for anything, for any of these, you know, anything that happens. Did that end your relationship with the church? For a long time, yeah. Yeah, for a long time. It's interesting how it kind of swings back around periodically, you know, when I will go to Omaha and for the holidays or whatever, and my, you know, my mother will ask us to go to church. And I used to fight it with her. And now I sort of feel like I can develop my own relationship with this religion that I actually, A lot of it, I have really fond memories of going to church as a kid.

I learned a lot from growing up Catholic. And so I don't want to, it wasn't all negative. So I feel like now in my 40s that I'm figuring out a way to like hang on to a little bit of it. It feels a little more cultural than it does spiritual. But I'm trying to figure out a way to balance that a little bit more. Josh, let's get to you. How? How am I going to even begin to go after that?

What do you mean? Oh, I have a suggestion. Oh, God. I have a suggestion, yes. Your father was from Afghanistan and was Jewish and also had a secret family that you didn't know about it. A secret family in, I forget which country in South America. Columbia. Columbia.

Yeah. So just starting with religion. So I'll see your priest, Andrew, and raise you in Afghanistan. Secret family. Secret family in Colombia. Yes. Well, it actually does tie in to this theme and that my father was a very religious Jew.

And in the same way that Andrew's story presents a much more horrific version, but a version of hypocrisy. I saw this man who I love dearly and, and, and who is my father, but who is very flawed, and who is hiding behind scripture, which openly states, thou shalt not do all of the things you're about to do. And I was very confused

because I was being forced to go to temple every week and walk to synagogue and keep kosher and do all of these things. And this guy's, like not even getting to the second commandment without breaking that. And I was like, okay. So it was very hard because it really was very confusing seeing, you know, this disciplined version of Judaism be so undisciplined in his personal life. And the way it ravaged my mother emotionally and left this sort of wake.

of chaos and its path was deeply hard and disturbing. So, first of all, your father left the family, I think, when you were six. Introduced me to a brother I didn't ask about or know about and then told me not to tell my mother that I met him, which was very complicated. Oh, yeah. That's putting a lot of secrecy on your shoulders. Yeah.

Yeah. Hiding it from your mother who you're going to continue to live with while he will into another country. Yeah. Correct. So how did that affect your relationship with Judaism? You know, it's funny. I find Andrew's answer to actually be a perfect embodiment of how I view my own relationship with religion, which is I really enjoy the traditions. I enjoy the traditions. I enjoy the. spirituality and the historical tentacles of that spirituality. It ties you to a time, a place, a people that I think is really interesting. I find my way to faith on my own terms, and I really find that faith has been useful in some of the hardships that I've gone through in my life. Recently, my mom had a medical emergency that came out of left field. And I will be very honest. I found faith in a place that I haven't been looking in a long time to find it. And I found it to be at the very least a useful escape. And maybe even more than that. And my mom had a very small

chance of surviving and did. And I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. And it's also complicated because my grandparents were both Holocaust survivors and their families were executed simply for being followers of a faith. So I can never fully abandon this thing that I've been, that is my birthright, whether I wanted or not. And so I'm, I find that finally at 45.

I'm able to comfortably define religion on my own terms and also celebrated on my own terms. And my wife is Catholic, and we are very, very open with the children about both of these things. And we celebrate Christmas and we celebrate Hanukkah, we celebrate Passover, we celebrate Easter. And what I love is giving them the options

that I was never given, giving them a direction and letting them choose their own path. I think that kind of like dual religion is an interesting lesson in how there are different versions of trying to get to an understanding of the world, how it exists, what your place in it is, rituals to help you live your life. There isn't necessarily one correct way that there alternate ways, with all having the same goal. Well, this brings us back to the Book of Mormon, because at the end of the Book of Mormon, Josh's character, Elder Cunningham, basically creates a new religion based on this weird sort of mashup of like Star Wars characters and Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings. And he sort of mashes it all together. And here's where our real lives intersect with our characters, because Andrew calls this weird and I'm like, this is perfectly normal. It's totally normal. But it makes sense for the people in this Uganda village that he makes the religion makes sense. And he's criticized by the... By me. Yes. And by the Mormon Church. And by the Mormon Church for doing this. The characters criticized in the show. But the character explains that, no, I'm doing this

to prevent people from doing bad things. Yes, yes. And it's true. So you're making up these stories, but there's stories to prevent people from killing people. Castration, genital mutilation, and all of that. So you're doing a good thing, even though the elders of the church are convincing you of lying. That's right. My guests are Andrew Rannels and Josh Gad. They start on the original cast of the Book of Mormon. This week is part of the show's 15th anniversary on Broadway. and GAD are making cameo appearances in every performance. We'll be right back.

This is fresh air. I want to move on to something else. At some point, you both left the show. Did you leave because your contract was up? Did you leave at the same time? We did leave at the same time. Josh and I both had this very unique experience where we... So weird.

We opened the Book of Mormon. We were both nominated for Tony Award. We both lost those Tony Awards. Probably because you were competing against it. Perhaps. Let's go with that. We split the vote. We split the vote.

We then went out to Los Angeles on like, mine was on a vacation. I took a week off from the show. Same. We had a bunch of meetings in L.A. We were, you know, very popular. These two guys from the biggest Broadway hit, everyone wanted to meet with us. We both got TV shows for NBC. Josh's was called 1600 Penn.

Mine was called The New Normal. They both aired the same week. We went to the upfronts together. They were both canceled. The same week. And so we went through this ride together that was so – And look, other people had been through it. Kristen Chenoweth had gone through that, except she won her Tony Award.

But I watched her do the exact thing that I was trying to do, which was I didn't want to leave the Book of Mormon until I had a job that I thought, I could be proud of and that would somehow elevate me to another level. And this opportunity seemed like it was too good to miss. And I had started working on girls for HBO at that point, but I was I was only a guest star. So I was coming in and out and I was still doing the show at night. So that felt a little different. But this move for, you know, Josh back to L.A., me to L.A. for the first time, the fact that we got to do that together, make these shows and then have them both go away.

It was a interesting time. I was definitely, I think, more done than Andrew was by that point. I could have stayed longer. He is gifted in the sense that he really is somebody who can do this and quite well for as long as he puts his mind to it. I had checked out at that point and I felt like I was doing a disservice to myself and the audience. You didn't seem like you were checked out. No, but I started forgetting lines on, I was, you know, I wasn't present.

You were ready. And I was ready. I was, it was, but I had also been doing it for so long. Yes, that is true. From its origin that I was like, I wanted to try new things. And I have very sort of, you know, when I sort of do the same thing again and again, I start to get bored. Let's call that ADHD. But I was, at that point, I was very, I was very ready.

And I look back at that. now with a lot of regret. Yeah. Because I don't think I appreciated this incredible moment until I was able to reflect on it actually years later. Because when you're in it, when you're in the eye of the hurricane, it's, there's a lot going on that you can't stop and settle yourself and go, oh, my God, this is a moment that I'll never have again.

This is so unbelievably unique. Well, we both had people telling us. We had large groups of people telling us, like, don't stay too long. You're bigger than this. And you don't want to, you don't want to miss this opportunity. Right, right. And even though something in my gut for me personally thought, I would like to stay a little bit longer. Do you regret not staying longer?

I do. I do too. I do. I wish that I had stayed longer. These opportunities come up and you're like, well, I don't want to lose it. Yeah. And will Ryan Murphy ever call me again? I don't know.

Like, will we ever do this again? And so I said yes. But I do regret not staying longer. It has been wonderful to speak to you both. I'm so glad that you've had such interesting careers even after the Book of Mormon. And thank you so much for coming back to our show. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for having us.

You're the best. Thank you for keeping us on track. You know, most interviewers don't have that. in them to deal with Josh and I together. We were very disciplined today. We were very disciplined. Well, thank you for that. We took this very seriously.

Very seriously. We're huge fans of yours and Giorno. It's a real honor to be back here. So thank you. Andrew Reynolds and Josh Gadd start in the original cast of the Book of Mormon. As part of the show's celebration of its 15th year on Broadway, they're making cameo appearances in every performance this week. Other cast members will be making surprise appearances, as will the show's creators,

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who also created South Park, and Robert Lopez, who also co-wrote the songs for Frozen and Avenue Q. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Rae Baudenado, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yucundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper.

Roberta Shorok directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.