Josh Gad never played a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ character as gay

Josh Gad is ready to give his side of the story.

In his new memoir, I Gad We Trustthe Frozen actor opens up about the challenging period after the release of 2017 Beauty and the Beast reboot. A brief shot of Gad’s character LeFou dancing with another man provoked intense public backlash, but Gad claims that he “never once” played arrogant Gaston’s (Luke Evans) faithful servant as gay and that it was “sweet and innocent moment” was wildly taken out of context.

“I certainly didn’t exactly feel like LeFou was the one the queer community had been longing for,” Gad writes. “I can’t quite imagine a Pride celebration honoring the ‘watershed cinematic moment’ involving a quasi-villainous Disney sidekick dancing with a man for half a second. I mean, if I were gay, I’m sure I’d be mad.”

But it wasn’t the dance scene alone that turned a harmless legacy IP rehash into a powder keg of controversy. Off-the-cuff comments from key member of Beauty and the Beast creative team helped plant the idea that the film deliberately aimed to make LGBTQ history.

Gad says that before production begins Beauty and the Beast that he, director Bill Condon, and screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos had a “casual (but ultimately seismic) conversation…about the specific nature of LeFou’s devotion to Gaston. In the course of our discussions, we tried to discern whether or not LeFou loved Gaston or was in love with Gaston.”

They “eventually landed on the side of LeFou was truly in awe of Gaston, and it was not driven by any sexual desire, but rather a deep-seated love, appreciation and faith in this person he had served alongside in battle for many years.” To be as clear as possible, Gad repeats that Beauty and the Beast The creative team “never even discussed” and focused on “LeFou’s sexuality, which honestly wasn’t something to really explore in a random comedic character in the movie… or so I thought.”

But the focus shifted to LeFou’s sexuality for two reasons. First, it was an idea Condon and the choreography team had for LeFou — “a short, little moment to dance with another male celebrant.” Gad approved of the “raunchy” addition to the film, writing: “because I was a supporting character, I didn’t want to suddenly throw the weight of sexuality on this character, which in no way drove the film, but the moment (as described to me) seemed harmless enough – funny blink – and you’ll miss the little beat.”

Want more movie news? Sign up Weekly entertainment‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, movie reviews and more.

Second, Condon gave another interview Attitude in March 2017, saying the following: “LeFou is someone who one day wants to be Gaston and another day wants to kiss Gaston. He’s confused about what he wants… and Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of And it’s the one that has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away, but it’s a fine, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.

Gad felt that “the quote itself was lovely, beautiful and perfect… but for the three fateful words: ‘EXCLUSIVE GAY MOMENT’.”

The actor makes it clear throughout his discussion of Beauty and the Beast debacle that he would have been “happy” to play a gay LeFou. The fact was simply that “never once was the moment in this movie described to me as something we should hang a lantern on and pat ourselves on the back for. In fact, if it had, I would never have gone along with the seemingly cute and innocent moment, it was both too little and not enough to be anything more than it was.”

After Condon’s remarks were published, Beauty and the Beast was seen not only as a film with an ambiguous moment of queer affirmation, but as an explicit political statement. “Had the audience defined it as a cute exclusively gay moment,” Gad writes, “I would have been happy! But the second we pointed it out and seemingly congratulated ourselves, we’d invited hell and fury.”

Beauty and the Beast prompted boycott across the United States and was banned in several countries abroad. Gad says Condon, who is gay, “felt terrible” about his remarks and “felt put on the spot … to share his pride in some form of representation in the film” during the interview. But the damage was done and “no one wanted to discuss anything” other than the “exclusively gay moment”. The rest of the cast was even looped into an endless commentary cycle.

Street noted in interviews at the time that “probably too much has been made of it all,” and in 2022 reflected that, “We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades… We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.'” My regret about what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first openly gay moment’ and it was never meant to be.”

The most effective counter to the controversy proved to be time, when once enough people actually saw the film, Gad writes in his memoir that “Everybody looked at each other and said, ‘Wait, that’s it? That’s what all the fuss was about .?'”

As inflamed as the controversy became, it did not make a dent Beauty and the Beast‘s ticket office. The film grossed up to Rs 1.2 billion dollars on a roughly 300 million dollars budget. It even got a couple of Oscar nominations (Best Costume Design and Best Production Design), and continues second highest grossing film of all Disney live-action remakes.

I Gad We Trust is available now.