Photo: EW
There’s no need to be an expert when building a snowman or memorizing hit song lyrics. But here we are now.
Frozen’s Olaf voice actor Josh Gad revealed that after nearly ten years, two smash-hit films, and one themed Disney World boat ride in Epcot, he has not memorized the lyrics to the film’s award-winning soundtrack hit “Let It Go” by Idina Menzel.
In an appearance on Good Morning America, Gad stated, “So, there’s a problem with this, people assume that because I’m in Frozen that I know the lyrics to ‘Let It Go.’ What’s funny: I don’t know the lyrics to ‘Let It Go.'” He was recounting an April performance at Carnegie Hall paying tribute to songwriters Kristen-Anderson and Robert Lopez, for which the actor came together on stage with Frozen co-stars Kristen Bell and Santino Fontana.
“So, there was a little monitor, but everybody was like, ‘Yeah, Josh, just move over, you know it already, we don’t even need this,'” he added.
He continued with the performance even though he didn’t know any of the lyrics.
“I’ve got the mic, and I’m doing, ‘The stars are bright, and the mountains are light, and you know that things are nice,’ just making up lyrics,” he said, laughing.
“Not a single word was correct. It was a disaster. And of course – this is a true story – I had the only working mic on the stage.”
Menzel’s song became one of the greatest hits in 2013, ranking No. 5 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and earning 8x Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
Meanwhile, the Lopezs also snagged the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2014 for writing the tune. Afterward, the two earned another recognition for the 2018 Frozen sequel’s “Into the Unknown.”
Gad, who guested on GMA to promote the new installment of his animated series Central Park, said in an interview with PeopleTv’s Couch Surfing earlier that Robert Lopez tapped him following the initial screenings of the first movie due to Lopez feeling they were “a mess” because of the flow of the story and the music’s alignment.
He continued that Lopez wanted to change the sequencing with a “moment where we really see the girls’ affection for each other early on.”
Gad further stated that the change resulted in the composition of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” which narrates sisters Anna (Bell) and Elsa (Menzel) at a point of crucial moments in their lives when the former urged her sibling to build a snowman with her.
