The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Josh Gad

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Josh Gad joins Andy Richter to discuss his new Broadway show, "Gutenburg! The Musical!," fatherhood, the next phase of his career, anxiety, and much more.

Hello, it's Andy Richter. Today, I am talking to Josh Gad. Josh is an actor, comedian, and singer. He's a true star of stage and screen, and he's best known for his iconic performances as Elder Arnold Cunningham in the Book of Mormon musical and as Olaf the Snowman in the Frozen franchise. He's currently back on Broadway for Gutenberg the Musical with our pal Andrew Rannells. He joined us via Zoom from New York City. Here's my conversation with Josh. Hi, everybody. I'm here today. We are on a Zoom call, but I'm here with the much beloved and now omnipresent. You got so much stuff coming up. I'm talking today. We are on a Zoom call, but I'm here with the much beloved and now omnipresent. You got so much stuff coming up. I'm talking to Josh Gad. How are you, Josh?

Well, now that I'm talking to you, I'm much better. I mean, I started my day off and I was like, what does today have in store? I looked at my calendar. I saw that I get to speak to you and I got really excited because as you know, I love you. I love you too. Are you at home? And i know you have two little kids are they still home or are they in school now they're in so they're back in la and um i'm uh i'm a not great father figure right now and i'm in new york doing a job uh called broadway um but you know we sort of had this philosophy where we didn't want to disrupt their lives by kind of taking them nomadically wherever I have to go for work.

So I'm out here for four months and they're going to come every month that I'm here to come visit. But it's really hard right now not seeing them every day. I can imagine. Yeah, no, I can. I mean, let me see here.

They're 12 and nine you I mean you don't even have you don't even have to do research you have me I can just tell you I know but I I wanted to impress you by looking at my notes I have notes after all I that's really I'm an interviewer I'm very impressed this is like doing 60 minutes this is so much bigger than I could imagine once they get to be that age it is hard to it is hard to cart them around it's hard and they have their

social lives and it's slightly unfair at times and I'm like as hard as it is for me thank God for this and like FaceTime because I get to I get to see them every night. Although they're at that age now that I'm noticing that they're like, it's work to get them to want to talk to me.

They'll say, hi, dad, how's everything going? But like they're like to actually, it's like pulling teeth to get any information about like school or anything out of it. Yes. teeth to get any information about like school or anything out of it yes i have i uh i got divorced in 2019 and my daughter uh is is 18 now she's in her senior year of high school oh and i i you know i i mean in in addition to just the tumult and the you know the just the wrenching thing that a divorce is of course i was like i was like oh you know again you know, the, just the wrenching thing that a divorce is. I was like, I was like, oh, you know, again, you know, the worst thing was that I didn't

live in the same house with my kids. That was by far the worst part among many shitty parts of it. But I started to really feel like, oh, I'm, I'm losing touch with my daughter. And then I had so many people with, with teenage daughters tell me it, if you live there, she wouldn't want to talk to you. You know, it's wild. If you were in the same house, she would, she would be like, all right. Yeah. Yeah.

Sure. You're great and all, but I'll see you in a few years. Ava is, Ava's always been, she's my oldest one and she's always been daddy's girl. I like it. She's the sweetest, most giving, most caring. And 80 is wild because she's about to be 13. And I've been warned so many times that like this is the age where they like start to change. And I'm seeing it firsthand and it's such a bummer because like I want to hold on to that like my entire life.

And I've heard it come around, but I grew up one of three boys. So this whole, you know, uh, household full of estrogen is a, is a whole new, uh, thing. Well, there is, there is an aspect of father daughter relationships too. Cause I have an older son and now I have, cause I, I, I remarried to somebody that had a little girl. And so I have a three-year-old now too. Oh, wow. So I'm, I'm back to, although the three-year-old, you know, she had a preexisting relationship with her mother. So I'm kind of like, I'm the new guy and I'm, so I'm still earning,

I'm still earning my space, but it's different than having a son. I mean, you can't, you can't, I, I, I, I, I never really understood what the people with daughters had always told me about that. And you just really can't explain it. It really is a thing. Like, yeah. And I, I'm, you know, my, my poor wife gets into these like, you know, heated debates about things that the girls should or shouldn't be doing. And they're much more forceful with her.

And then of course I'm a pushover. Yeah. They always come to me with those big, beautiful eyes. And I'm like, oh, babe, just let him have one more candy, or just let him watch YouTube all night long. Terrible. I mean, they're old enough to vape. Just let him vape.

What's the big deal? Well, what's the harm of them trying just one eight ball bank it's just one yeah it's it's not great well that's the other thing too is i always found having a boy and a girl uh that the the uh the boy you know like my my son he son, he, there are things he would, uh, that he would do that. I would be like, I see through that bullshit and cut it out. And it was the same, but then my daughter would do stuff that would drive my ex-wife crazy. And I'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, I think there's just like intra gender, like, Oh, I, I, I know what you're doing. Cut that shit out. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. I think that that's accurate. I'm very fascinated with all of my friends who have boys right now at the age that my girls are because there's a lot of just stuff that I was like, oh, God, we really are Neanderthals as children. Yeah. Boys are just neat. And girls are just so sophisticated. I say- Like, I'll be around random boys is playing with their junk in front of me.

And I'll be like, what, what, what is happening? I always say, I always say like having a little girl is like having a computer and having a little boy is like having a hammer. Like that's the difference in raising them in terms of subtlety and and the sort of level of sort of maneuvering and negotiation that goes into raising the two you know that is that is a very accurate description yeah yeah well you're in new you're in new york right now because you're has it has it debuted it has it just you just previewed right just we we just i said preview like i was like are you are you british uh we just previewed on broadway yeah i just had our first preview um our first actually

week of previews uh for gutenberg the musical the new show I'm doing with my Book of Mormon co-star Andrew Reynolds and Andy, it went, I knew this show was special, which is why after 10 years, I decided to come back to Broadway. But I didn't, you always hope, right? Even with Book of Mormon, I had this expectation that the show was going to open and close after three months because it was just too controversial. And with this show, I was like, you know, my instinct is it's really special, and it's really heartwarming, and it's really funny. But until you get an audience in there, you really don't know. You're white-knuckling it through those first couple of previews

because you're like, are they going to come along for the ride? And it has been nothing short of astounding to see the reaction in real time to this thing that we've put all of our heart and souls into and body in my case. I've never worked so hard for my supper as I do in this show. Oh, really? Oh, God. It's the most physically challenging. I'm playing 20 characters. Andrew and I throughout the show literally have to balance and wear over 120 hats as part

of the conceit of the show. We dance in every song. It's a two-person show in which there's like 100 characters represented and we're also our own crew because we're moving things all over the stage.

So it's very physically demanded because it's a musical. It's also very vocally demanding, but it has been such a joy. Blood, sweat, and tears have all been expended. And now to see the visceral reaction night after night is everything I had hoped for and more. So I'm having the time of my life and we're doing it for 19 more weeks. I'm here through January 22nd and it's just been such a joyful beginning.

Where did the, like, just like the germ of the idea of, you know, a musical, two guys doing a, you know, like a completely ill-informed musical about Gutenberg and that being just a two-man show. Where was the germ of that idea? Well, so Scott Brown and Anthony King, the two creators of the show,

originally came up with this concept at UCB and they performed it as part of the UCB showcase and it was a big success. And after that, I think Alex Timbers, the director of the show, probably saw it at UCB and then said, you know, I'd love to actually help you guys adapt this as a state show. And I think first it went to London,

then it came off-Broadway. And it had a pretty successful off-broadway run and that was uh i want to say like with the same guys with the creators no two two different actors oh i see and then and then um it sort of had this cult following i didn't know about it and i was was talking to Alex Timbers about doing a funny thing happen on the way to the forum, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. And we were sort of going back and forth about what that would mean. And one thing led to another, and we both felt like not exactly the right time for it, but we knew we wanted to do something. And Alex said, I want to send you something.

It's called Gutenberg, the musical. Let me send it your way. When he first described it to me, I was like, I don't know if this is kind of what I'm looking for. It seems very meta and just a little eccentric. And I was like, I don't know if it feels too insular, too small for what I'm imagining. I want to go back and just take a look at it. So he sent it to me and I go, okay, this is hilarious. I have a couple of thoughts, but this is really smart and really funny. The only human being I would want to do this with is Andrew Rambles. He goes, well, funny you should say that.

I've also been talking to Andrew about it. Manipulators, surrounded by manipulators. It's the best form of directors. Manipulation at its kindest. And so Andrew and I said, okay, here's the deal. Let's get in a room with Scott and Anthony and you and let's

hear this out loud. Let's just do it out loud. Music stands. Sing it through. So we did it. We all looked at each other and we go, really fucking good good yeah uh why don't we take next steps that was march of 2020 and two days later the world shut down yeah uh out of sight out of mind and at the beginning of uh well at the end of last year, Alex writes me and he goes, Gutenberg, what do you think? I go, man, how soon do you want to do it? He goes, we think we could get it up this year. And, and

I, Andy, I'm somebody who's very sort of like, it's a very big sacrifice to leave my family. So a four month commitment to go do a broadway show was not something that came easily and i said okay let's do one more reading let's see how it goes and then if we're all happy let's take next steps we did it felt like an old glove we said all right this is it let's do it let's i have this opening i had no idea at the time that it would be a very long opening because the actors in Stride and Strike. And so we carved out this window from September till January. And over the past month or so, we've been in a rehearsal space bringing this thing to life and taking the promise of what was on off-Broadway and making it our own and adding elements to make it, I think, even more of a

love letter to musical theater than it already was. And it's just been so fulfilling and so rewarding to be able to perform live for an audience again. I really missed it. I didn't realize how much my soul needed that. And I love film and TV, but this keeps you honest in a way that those mediums don't sometimes. And I needed this at this point in my career, in my life. Sometimes I need a check-in with my craft and with my love.

And theater is always that check-in. It always is like, okay, I'm in front of a live audience. They're going to hold me accountable for two hours and I better bring my all every single night. There's no holding back and they're paying a premium and I have to give them a show worthy of their time and their money. And it's been grueling, but also exhilarating. So I'm thrilled.

You have to come out and see it. You're going to love it. I mean, at some point I definitely will. But yeah, because it sounds hilarious. And I mean, and I, you know, I saw you guys in Book of Mormon. And, you know, it was, that was such a magical show. And I, you know, I like, I like a lot of, you know, I like show tunes. But I, my attention span is so bad that the theater to me is, can be difficult.

I'll tell you, so I'll tell you something that i i only heard and it's a small sample size but people are coming to see this show and they're saying the same thing they said with morgan which is i don't like musical theater and this is now one of my favorite shows ever yeah yeah and and i and i think a part of it is that the show is so relentlessly funny i would say pound for pound it may this is this is crazy but it may actually be as funny laugh for laugh as mormon but in a completely different way in a completely different way yeah equally as irreverent but in a completely different way and i think a part of that is just our experience of doing Mormon and Randall's and I feeling like, look, expectations are high. There better not be a wasted breath in this show where the audience isn't laughing or exhilarated by something they're watching.

So we've really, and Timbers, our director, has been very aware of that expectation. timbers our director has been very aware of that expectation and we have this built-in audience who are expecting a certain thing and based on the early previews the the resounding response seems to be oh shit it's it's a completely different package but it's the same joy yeah yeah what now i mean you know i don't i don't to jinx anything, but what happens if it's a crazy runaway success? Do you, do you maybe do more? Do you maybe extend or do they, do they recast? You know, I sort of second Raiders in there afterwards. No, there's no set. That's not a thing. All right. Yeah. Let me hit pause and then we'll talk honestly. We committed. Andrew and I really felt strongly that we wanted this to be a limited run. So the idea was, this is four months,

you either see it or you don't, and that's on you. And it's a bummer, but it's also, I felt like I overstayed my welcome at Book of Mormon. I was there for a year and a half and I don't think towards the end I was, in all fairness, giving my all. And I was tired. I was somewhat bored of doing the same thing for a year and a half is a long time to say the same words night after night. And I vowed to never put myself or my audience in that position again. So I want to leave with them and I want to mourn. And that's the idea here. And,

and, you know, I hope it is a resounding success and never say never. Uh, but for now, I think the plan is, uh, January 28th will be our final show.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I mean, that's, you know, I come from an improv background and the times that I

have done theater, that has been the real hard thing for me. And I just, I think it's just because I never was used to it. I was used to constant change and it suits me like, you know, even when I started working out of college, I worked in film production and there was the freelance life appeals to me because it's always different, you know? And then I went to work for Conan O'Brien for, you know, the better part of 30 years looking at that face. You guys are one of the great iconic teams. Thank you. are one of the great iconic teams of comedy. It's funny. Rannells and I are now getting, I think inappropriately linked to some of those like comedic pairings. And I do think of you and Conan is one of the like iconic comedic pairings of,

of, of all time in comedy. I really do. Thank you so much. Can't you tell my love were you an acting kid like did you were you always kind of putting on shows and i i yeah i'm a i'm a i'm sort of the like uh i'm a case study in in you know the the sort of uh story that you hear about children of divorce meeting an outlet. It's so a lot of them turn to acting. And I'm sort of that cliche.

My parents got separated when I was five years old. when I was five years old, I could see the sadness in my mom and vowed to try to pull her out of it by being goofy. The first anecdote I remember of being an idiot was my mom got called into school when I was in kindergarten. And it's very hard to have a reason for teachers to call parents into school in kindergarten. And they called my mom in because I would apparently walk into class late for some reason. And when I walked in, I would say, hiya toots to the teachers. And they did not like that. Or I would say, Lucy, I'm home. And so I was disruptive at six. And so I think that was like, I always kind of had this desire to get laughs and make people happy. And it was one of those things that went from a sort of, yeah, I'm doing this

because it brings me joy to I'm doing this because I feel like I need to do this because I feel like it's a passion. And so I, I, you know, I told my parents, I told my mom, um, at, at, you know, pretty early age, this is what I want to do. And, uh, she said, great, you're not going to be a professional actor until you get, um, you know, an education. Yeah. And, and she said, great, you're not going to be a professional actor until you get an education. And she said, you can go to conservatory, but you've got to get a diploma. And I'm so grateful for that. And I went to Carnegie Mellon and I learned and was able to hone my craft there alongside some amazing people in my class, Josh Groban, Leslie Odom Jr. from Hamilton and many other incredible things, Rory O'Malley, who I did Book of Mormon with. And after that, I struggled for about two and a half

years where I just really, I wasn't breaking in at all. And I called up my mom one day and I said to her, I think I'm going to go to law school because both of my brothers went to law school. And I was like, I feel like, I met somebody I really, really love. This was Ida who had become my wife. And I was like, I feel like maybe it's time to settle down and this isn't going my way. And my Jewish mother started crying and she said to me, I'm disappointed. And I said, why are you disappointed? What Jewish mom says disappointed when their son says I'm going to law school? It's like everything a mom wants to hear. She goes, you spent 15 years dreaming about doing this and only two and a half years

try to live out that dream. And I think that's a cop-out. And I was like, whoa. Wow. And a week after, there was this show on Broadway called 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee that Dan Fogler, a brilliant actor, won a Tony for. And my buddy saw it and he said, Josh, there's literally only one person who can take over for this guy when he leaves. And it's you. And I was like, oh, you know, I didn't go to school for musical theater. I didn't think I was good enough to be a musical theater person.

So they put me in the acting category. In Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh. Yeah. In Yensertown. And, uh, and so I auditioned and, uh, I somehow pulled a rabbit out of my hat and I got the role and it changed my life. And, uh, and I haven't looked back. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, I mean, because I complete just did when you said something about, you know, like making your sad mother happy, like, oh, boy, does that strike a nerve with me? Because my folks divorced when I was about four and I have this image of my mother in a waitress uniform laying on the couch of my grandmother's house with her forearm over her eyes.

And that was like about a year, I think, a year or two of just where she just needed to be quiet and heal for a little while. And I felt that same pressure, you know, I felt that same pressure. And it would come out at school too in the same way. I felt that same pressure and it would come out at school too, in the same way, because like, I wish someone had taken a picture of when I was in kindergarten on my birthday. Uh, if it was your birthday, you wore a little crown all day. And then there was, there was either a pink or blue, like this felt sleeve that would go over the back of your little desk chair that said birthday boy or birthday girl on the back like some little arts and crafts thing and uh i that day apparently i was a little amped because it was my birthday and this is when they used to be able to do things

like that um i was tied to my chair with a jump rope by the teacher. And my brother, who's three years older than me, just like during recess, I was left tied to my chair with a fucking crown on my head. That's incredible. And birthday boy on the back tied to my chair. And my brother walked by and just looked in the doorway and just laughed, just laughed at me. And then went out to play with the other children.

We need, by the way children we need by the way we need to speak to your kindergarten classmates and there's got to be visual evidence of this somewhere i know i don't i doubt it i doubt it and especially like well it would be actionable at this point to the teacher by the way restraining a child with a rope yeah that would probably be frowned upon now yeah yeah did that was that a component of you like has that been a component of of you you know like wanting to make everybody happy and kind of you know sweating it out to kind of you know where you and and where being a performer you kind of made lemonades or a lemonade out of lemons, you know, in terms of the urge of just trying to keep people happy. Yes.

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I was actually, it's very interesting. I had this sort of out of body moment the other night as I was doing the show. And we're in that sort of overwhelming process right now where we're doing tech during the day, during previews, and then doing the show at night. So things are changing and it's very stop and start and very frustrating it's very frustrating and and then you're you have

the added stress of having to remember new lyrics and new choreography to a song as you're doing the show live for people and it's very stressful and i i was very stressful. And I had this moment of frustration on stage where I was internally like, Todd, I'm really upset right now. This is frustrating. I hate that I'm worried about what's coming up because I don't want to forget it and screw up the show. And I just looked out in the audience and I saw how happy they all were. It was like, you know what? There's nothing to be stressful about. I'm giving these people a moment to just enjoy their lives and enjoy themselves. And that's priority number one, two, and three. And it's just reminder of like that's what we signed up for right and sometimes the clown is sad and and and that is oftentimes when we're at our best my my idol is charlie

chaplin there's a man who was tormented from the beginning of his life to the end of his life and and if you read his biographies there there's just so much sadness. There's so much anger and there's so much angst. And at the same time, the tramp gives us these brilliant sort of opportunities to reflect off of him what humanity means, right? Whether it's the kid or whether it's Gold Rush or whether it's modern times. And I think that that's, you know, I was blessed enough to know Robin Williams. I've been blessed enough to know a lot of incredible comics who I think all have this underlying sadness at their core.

And it's that marriage of those two things that I think really you know sometimes can both be volatile in the worst of ways and volatile in the best of ways in terms of performance and and you know there are days when I'm really sad because I'm not with my children and I try to weaponize that through comedy and and and that helps me get through it it's therapeutic it's cathartic and it and it feels it feels like it's it's not only is it giving others a chance to laugh but it's also giving me a chance to express my grief in a way that is unorthodox yeah yeah now and you have been you've been pretty open about uh struggling with anxiety you've had oh yeah like specific

i think it's generalized anxiety generalized anxiety disorder is that it literally could couldn't be more perfect that it's i know it's crazy that that has got very open about it because i want people to know that like misery has company and like i um you know when i tell you that at at 21 years old when it started um out of the blue um it was crippling i mean i i couldn't leave bed i didn't know what was going on tell me yeah tell me how that happened like what like what so so the first time it happened i i this is strange but i smoked something in in college and it it sort of started after that where like i said not not to say i i don't you know believe in marijuana and and by the way i still use it but i had i thought i thought you were talking about fish yeah i smoked I smoked a little fish.

It was around Rosh Hashanah, and it triggered me in a really bad way. So I had this adverse response. Yeah. Was that the first time you ever smoked weed? That was the first time I ever smoked weed. Wow. smoke weed so that was the first time i ever smoked weed uh and and it was and it instead of like you know doing what like i've now found sort of like my happy place when when i uh you know to take anything like that but back then i didn't know i i was just somebody was handing me something i

smoked it and i had a really bad response. And my heart just started shortly thereafter. And I don't necessarily know that there's a cause and effect to that. I think it was also just like at a time in my life when a lot was going on and I had lost a bunch of weight and I felt out of body. I didn't feel like myself. My parents left my child at home. And it was all just like I was about to leave college. Everything was like climax.

And I went home the summer before my senior year of college. And one night, I thought I was having a heart attack. I couldn't catch my breath. Could not breathe. And I started sobbing uncontrollably. I could not stop crying. And I didn't know what theably. I could not stop crying. And I didn't know what the hell was happening to me.

Wow. And I went to go see every doctor imaginable. And I thought that somebody thought maybe I was having, I had MS. Somebody thought that I had like, it was like all of these different things. That won't help the stress. No, not at all. And like my parents got like my, my stepdad and my mom got blessed and we try like everything, like taking me to a baseball game and everything would trigger me and just be worse. And I, I couldn't leave my house for like two weeks.

And then one day, um, my brother's like, I think you should go speak to a therapist. And I was like, no, this is, something physically is happening. Like this is, and I felt like a prisoner in my own body. Like that's the way it felt. Yeah, yeah. And so I went to, I finally went to go see, what is the type of doctor that looks at neurological stuff. A neurologist. Thank you.

You're welcome. It's one of those mornings. I mean, it was right there for the taking. Oh, you mean in the word neurological, there's a doctor who actually has that? So I saw a neurologist, and the neurologist concluded that indeed he thought that it was something to do with anxiety. Indeed, he thought that it was something to do with anxiety. So I went to go see a psychiatrist and a psychologist.

And I started taking medication. And over the course of a couple of weeks, it was like someone lifted the veil from this prison I was in and I could actually see straight again. And with the help of this SSRI that I've been on since I was 21 and talk therapy, I can live my life. And I feel so grateful and I feel like it's so important because I think a lot of kids going through this don't understand what's happening when it's happening and there's a stigma for some reason which I don't quite understand like I mental health to me is like any other um medical condition that needs to be treated and and we, if you were walking around with a broken bone sticking out of your leg, you'd go to the doctor, you know, and, and if you walk around feeling like you want to die all the time, you're like, nah, it's my fault. I should just get, you know,

I should just grin and bear it. And, and that's the thing. And, and, and, you know, some people can do it without meds and God bless them. For me, it was everything I needed and more. And I still get a healthy dose of anxiety, but it's not crippling. I can live my life. And when I feel that sort of kind of overwhelming sensation, I'll speak to a therapist and I'll just kind of talk to them about it and I can reacclimate myself and, and, um, and it all feels good. You know, like after this podcast, I'm going to go into a deep spiral of anxiety about the fact that I couldn't remember a neurologist is someone who treats neurological disorders. Okay. Now this is something, you know, I, I've always been struck because I see it in myself.

Like I'm not like, I would, if you, if you were to ask me to typify myself i would say i'm kind of shy and yet i'm a clown for a living you know like i get in front of people and act like an idiot and and so it's it's interesting that you this anxiety reared its head at a certain point like right too when you're sort of like thinking i want to be on stage for a living it's very inconvenient but i see it i see it so often that these dichotomies and people that get up in front of people to entertain them they have something where it's like you shouldn't be doing that and do you do like has that occurred to you and do you are you struck by that i will tell you there is not a time when i get in front of an audience whether it's a talk show or whether it's doing my hundredth performance of a stage show where i don't get this like

deep-seated anxiety right before i walk out it fail right and and I've I've I've always been like I think it's I think it's something that a lot of performers have but they just don't talk about again because stigmatized but like then you'll sort of hear about like people like Barbara Streisand and Adele who literally throw up before they go on stage because they're so nervous. And I think it's a real thing. And I think there's a healthy dose of that that turns into the adrenaline that that allows you to do.

I'll give you a perfect example of this. This was two performances ago. They changed a bunch of stuff. They gave me a bunch of new lines. They gave me some new choreography and unlike Randall's who's, you know, done like eight Broadway shows I've done. This is my third and I, and it's, it messes with my head. And when, when I get changes and I have to incorporate that, I got seriously anxious and I walked on stage with that anxiety and i was like oh it just it's you know it needs an outlet and last night i was like i am not going to let this

get the best of me i'm going to take a deep breath and i walked on stage and i as i saw the audience i i welcomed their uh entrance applause and I soaked it in and I let it ground myself and I was able to go. But it's always been a thing for me. There wasn't a time where I did your show with Conan where I would not get physically ill backstage before I walked out. I don't know if that's like imposter syndrome. I don't know if it's, ironically, I share the same fear of public

speaking that everybody else in the world does. I don't know what it is, but I've come to peace with it because I think it also ends up being something that is useful, something that turns into this other energy that you can then give, give back. Yeah. It's like a convertible fuel that you can turn into something. That's a great way of putting it. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, but, but ecologically friendly. Exactly. You're not, it doesn't burn anyone, but you,

um, do you, did you come up with like, did you have specific kind of strategies to deal with it? Or was it just something that over repetition, you just kind of, you just knew like, I got to plow through and get this done. Yeah. I've, I've had, I've, I've come up with strategies.

You know, a simple thing is I actually literally just shake it out before I walk on stage. Like I, I, it all builds and then all, you know, kind of just like let that energy like loose. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, kind of just like let that energy like loose. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I have like little things I'll do, uh, like I'm just getting deep breaths in and then, you know, kind of using that to propel me. Um, and just, you know, the biggest thing is just mentally allowing myself to like speak

to my inner id and just say,'s okay like yeah it's okay to feel this way and like we're we're gonna get through it like nothing bad's gonna happen right we're gonna get through it right um you know but but i also like have never performed without that so i don't know i don't know what it would feel like to not have that. And I, and I don't, and I don't get that way on, on film. I don't get that way. You know, when I'm doing, uh, you know, TV, it's just really live performing of any time in front of us. Yeah. Yeah. Can't you tell my love's a crow? And obviously you have a voice that, that, that works so well in so many different applications.

And I just want to, because I, I have done, you know, animated voices too, and, and, and do voiceover work. But, uh, I just want to like, how does it, how do you feel about it in terms of your performing? Is it just like, is it like something that you're glad that you are able to do it? Or is it a, is it a different kind of performing that you have a different strategy for? Well, in the case of Olaf, it's, it's like one of those things that is probably the most fun thing in the world because my, my favorite thing to do as a kid was play with GI Joes. And I would literally sit there and I would create voices for each of them. And I had these big GI Joe bases and I would become all the characters. And I liken voiceover acting and animation to that.

You're just a kid in a sandbox and you have nothing but your voice to bring this character to life yeah can't use your face can't use your body to tell the story and so everything needs to be inflected in a way that is full of life to then inspire the animators to do the work they need to do to bring that character to life yeah and with olaf in particular it's one of those things where you know i i can't tell you how influential and significant and seismic seeing uh robin williams as the genie in aladdin in that you know 1992 1993 um debut that that kind of like was the the end of my sort of amateur love affair with performing and the beginning of like my professional love affair with it yeah yeah where i i looked at my mom and i was so i would it blew up my brain it was like my internal Oppenheimer moment where I

was like that's what I want to do whatever that is that's what I want to do yeah and um and so like you know Frozen gave me that outlet to sort of bring that kind of sidekick character to life never in a way that will live up to the gold standard which was which was robin as the genie but but it gave me the the opportunity to sort of follow in those footsteps and and it's such a privilege and an honor to get to create a character like that that has um so important to so many people of so many different ages. Yeah, yeah. Fascinating.

Especially little kids. That's what's amazing when you get to do a cartoon voice that lands with little kids. Who ever thought that you'd be making a difference to little kids? It's really incredible. And I'll be walking around sometimes and I'll be on the phone and I'll be talking to my wife or I'll be talking to my kids and I'll see a little head right in their neck and look at me because they recognize that voice. And it just, there's wonder in their eyes, confusion for sure, but wonder. And I'm really grateful you know i'm sure you've had this too but i've i've

also had both the the the privilege and the sad reality of having to leave a lot of messages for kids who aren't necessarily doing well right and it it is such a privilege that people reach out to me and say, I think you leaving a simple voicemail may lift this child's spirits even for a few fleeting minutes. And that is the greatest gift to be able to give a family just a sense of peace in a sea of sadness. And I feel enormously grateful that I get to bring a character to life that so many people feel a connection to.

Yeah, that does sound, that you're using the word gift for that, to be able to make a little kid happy in that situation. Yeah, it is. It's, you know, not a lot of people get to experience, you know, something like that where it is. And you know, and when you think about it, it's kind of like, well, my agent called me and they had this job and I went and read for it and I got this job and then you fast forward and you're making kids in that situation happy and well the story of frozen is it's a very it's a very strange and circuitous one it wasn't that simple it was actually really strangely i did a reading uh of uh of reading of an upcoming animated movie called Anna and the Snow Queen.

And the reading was me, Jason Biggs, Megan Mullally playing the Elsa equivalent, and Jennifer Goodwin playing the Anna equivalent. They weren't sisters. The music was all different. It was Alan Menken. And we did this reading and it was fine. And the snowman was Anna's like, he led an army of snowmen. And his name was Olaf.

And he had this like lisp and he was an odd bird. And it all went away. Princess and the Frog came out. It wasn't a success. And I think the studio attributed that to princess movies don't sell tickets anymore and then uh they were sort of like gonna start pursuing a bunch of different types of stories and tangled was this last movie that that they were going to release of the princess movies because it was too far in production

and at the time it was called like rapunzel or Rapunzel Embraided or something. And they were like, we got to change it to Tangle to Boy Scum. And then that movie blew up. And then I'm doing Book of Mormon and Jeffrey Katzenberg offers me this DreamWorks movie called Me and My Shadow. It was me and Bill Hader, Dade Hudson. And I'm supposed to do this movie and I record all this dialogue and it's supposed to come out Thanksgiving of 2013, which is exactly when Frozen is supposed to come out. And I get a call that Frozen is now back on and they want me to play the snowman again. And because the movies are so close in terms of timing, I have to get approval from Katzenberg. Katzenberg says, absolutely not.

You cannot do a Disney movie while you're promoting our film. They're coming out too close to each other. I was like, oh man. So I told this to John Lasseter and the team at Disney, and they were super bummed. And I called Katzenberg back and I said, is there any way that you would let me do this? What if I,

can we get creative? And he goes, okay, how about this? You don't do any promotions and they don't use your name in any publicity, I'll let you do it. So I'm like, there's no way Disney lawyers are going to agree to this. And somehow,

they called his bluff and they said, okay. And so me and my shadow ends up going away because it was a beautiful movie, but it was a little dark and adult. And then Frozen becomes Frozen. Did it come out? It actually did come out. It didn't come out. Wow. It was canceled. come out did it actually it actually didn't come out it didn't come out wow it was if they it was it was canceled basically they at that point they had released a couple of darker films

and they weren't doing well so they went back to sort of like light and airy the light air and airy and this was a noir it was stunning it was um half of it was in 3d animation, half traditional 2d. So they brought back all these hand-drawn artists and there's, there's visuals online. The movie would have been spectacular, but I think it was, uh, a little too sophisticated for, for something. It's amazing how far along they get and things. Then they just sit on them. I can't like, there's a, there's a famous Disney movie that Bobby and Kristen who did

Frozen the music to Frozen and Book of Mormon Bobby they were working on a movie called Gigantic and they got like I mean that whole movie was half animated and then they just pulled the plug it's crazy

well what do you I mean you got a full plate here I wish I could talk about it but there's a strike that prevents me from talking. Right. Right. But let's just say you got a lot of stuff. know come to its senses soon and and work in you know in a realistic way of trying to solve these you know these these historic issues that have yet to be solved and and unfortunately the industry has changed so much that this is probably our best and final chance to actually make a difference in these contracts so that writers in the future can not have to get 10 different jobs in order to make an honest living and a sustainable living in LA. And I'm forever the optimist and I hope that we get there and I hope I will be able to talk about

these projects that I'm really proud of. But yeah, it sucks. I can't talk about any of them right now. And I support my guild, so I won't. But yeah, suffice it to say, there's a lot that potentially is on the horizon. And for now, though, I'm just so thrilled to be doing this. I'm also, I just wrote my first children's book, which by the way, I don't think I've mentioned before. This is, you're the first one I'm mentioning this to. Oh, wow.

Oh, cool. I may get in trouble. That's going to come out next year and I should be formally announcing it soon, but it's very, very exciting. And I'm working on a couple of other things that even if there weren't a strike, I couldn't talk about yet, but I will tell you that if they happen, it's going to make you very happy. It's going to make a lot of other things that even if there weren't a strike i couldn't talk about yet but i will tell you that if they happen it's going to make you very happy it's going to make a lot of people very happy it's wonderful uh one of them is is a very special uh classic that um i i have

forever been obsessed with and have been granted the honor of um of playing in the sandbox. So I'm, I'm very excited about that. And, uh, and yeah, we'll, we'll see. But for now it's, it's just Gutenberg day and night. Well, what do you, you, you know, do you, do you have any plans? Is there things left undone that, you know, that you kind of where you want to go from here, uh, with your career? Is it kind of just keep keep keep going the way you've been going no um you know so historically i always come back to broadway when i want to reset my my

creative aspirations uh you know spelling bee was sort of like the launching off to my career. I started to get cast a lot as the fat, funny friend in TV and film. And I was unsatisfied. It's a very creative part of the business. It's very, very creative. And I was like, fuck this. I'm not interested in this. I don't like this. I don't want this. So I turned down a lot of money and a lot of different things. And I did a show that at the time had no promises of even going to Broadway. And that was Book of Mormon. Yeah. And it sort of carved out the next journey of my life.

Gutenberg is sort of like, you know, and each one has been a different decade in my adult life. Well, spelling bee was my 20s. Mormon was my 30s. Gutenberg's my 40s. The next chapter will look different. I'm challenging myself to take on things that scare me a little bit more. I'm planning on directing my first film. I'm wanting to venture into new areas, whether it's producing, writing, and directing. And also the stuff that I act in, also just being a little pickier about and doing things that,

frankly, scare the bejesus out of me. And I think that that's a healthy place to be. And I'm excited. I think that this is a new chapter and a really different one for me. Good. It's, you know, that's, you know, for somebody plagued by anxiety, you seem to throw a lot of challenges in your own way there. So it's the only way to get through it. It's the only way to get through it. Yeah. But it's very healthy very healthy it's very healthy um well uh we're gonna wrap up here but the you know the final thing i always ask people is kind of what what do you what's the most important thing you've learned up to this point in your life uh that you can share with people the most important thing i've learned is that you can't be driven by fear. And that's a very generic statement, but I'm going to apply it in a more specific way.

You can't be driven by the fear of failing because if you don't try to fail, you may never succeed. Because if you don't try to fail, you may never succeed. You can't be driven by the fear of the unknown, because if you don't take that leap sometimes, then what can be known? And you can't be afraid of the fear of what it means to make mistakes, because without making those mistakes, there's no new lessons that we can learn throughout our lives. And for a lot of my early years, I was so afraid. And I'm not talking about it in the clinical sense of anxiety. I'm talking about it in sort of the kind of more attributable sense of I'm afraid of letting myself down so I won't put myself out in a way where anything bad can happen. And an example of this is like at a young age, I was so terrified of doing standup because I know I'm a horrible standup. And I, one day I just was like, I'm going to rip the fucking bandaid off and I'm going to go do it. And I did a standup back and I, for my first standup back, I, I did a 30 minute set,

which is ridiculous. Good Lord. That's like deciding to learn to swim by entering the Olympics. I paid for a venue. I spent $2,000 that I didn't have. Wow. And I invited some of the most important agents at the time that I could think of. And Andy, it was the single worst night of my life. It was such garbage.

It was so bad that like, I don't think anybody should ever, ever, ever have to see any of it. Like not even a minute of it was funny. Yeah. And, and I completely collapsed and yet it was such a good lesson. I learned so many things about myself that if I hadn't tried it, I never would have ended up being who I am today. And I can kind of speak to many of those stepping stones in my life where I have done something that has been such an unmitigated disaster and then it made me better. So the lesson that I've learned at the age of 40 is really don't be afraid of fear. Don't let it influence all of your decisions. Sometimes embrace it and know that it's going to go wrong. Know that it's going to sometimes be the shittiest experience of your life, but something good

will come out of it. Yeah. And that took me a while to come to terms with that. And now that I'm 42, I'm really not only comfortable with falling flat, but I really always welcome the fall. Awesome. Well, Josh, thank you so much for taking the time. I adore you.

Everybody go see Gutenberg the Musical. Yes. And thank you, all of you out there, for listening. And I will be back next time with more of The Three Questions. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddie Ogden. Research by

Alyssa Grahl. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to The Three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts. And do you have a favorite question you always like to ask people? Let us know in the review section. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Can't you feel it ain't a-showing? Oh, you must be a-knowing. I've got a big, big love. This has been a Team Coco production.