A special thank you goes out to Walt Disney Studios for providing press access and materials for this EXCLUSIVE Interview With Luke Evans and Josh Gad of Beauty and the Beast as well as sponsoring my trip and accommodations to the Be Our Guest Event. Opinions expressed are that of my own.
When you envision the role of Gaston and his sidekick LeFou in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Luke Evans and Josh Gad are a perfect fit. Between handsome looks and comic relief, I can tell you that these 2 have the best chemistry on and off camera.
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Luke Evans is an accomplished London West End theater actor and known for his portrayals in films like “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” as well as “The Fast & Furious”, and “The Girl on The Train,”. Of course we know Josh Gad in the famous role of Olaf in “Frozen”, but you have also heard him in “The Angry Birds Movie,” as well as seen him in the film “Pixels”; and Television Sitcoms like “1600 Penn” as well as “New Girl” and “Modern Family.” See how the creative team of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST made an excellent choice in actors, by reading this exclusive Luke Evans and Josh Gad interview:
FYI, we had just watched them perform Gaston (see the following video) and Luke and Josh immediately started with laughs and volunteering details of how they are trouble makers.
Luke Evans shared, “We are literally cut from the same cloth. We cause trouble wherever we go, but make people laugh in the process. It was a lot of fun playing these characters, we were massive fans of the original and we were both kids when they came out. He was 10 (Josh), I was 12. I was in South Wales, he was in South Florida and the climate was rather different. It probably meant even more to me because it was always dark and gloomy where I came from. To go in and watch a Disney film in the little cinema in our village was the highlight of my year. To bring them to life, we both felt very lucky. We knew that we could have a lot of fun and laugh, there were moments, some of the funniest moments we had, are things that we made up on the moment.”
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Josh explained, “Oh yeah. The first sequence when the two of us are riding in that wagon with Maurice. That whole idea of calming Luke down with stories about the war, was something that we literally came up with on the spot. We had about 30 variations of it. Some of them were even more insane than what you see on the screen. But you’re always hoping, when you get paired with somebody, and I’ve had a couple of those films that I’ve done, where it’s all about the chemistry between the two characters.”
He continued, “The day I met Luke, especially because I didn’t even realize we both came from musical theater, Luke from the West Side, me from Broadway, so we have this common language and this common understanding. This common goal of wanting to do justice to a movie that was so – I cannot stress this enough – so pivotal in our childhoods. The second golden age of Disney animation from LITTLE MERMAID to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, to ALADDIN then to LION KING, defined my growing up. They really did. I was 10 years old when BEAUTY AND THE BEAST came out. And those Alan Menken, Howard Ashman songs, they really were the soundtrack to my childhood. Bringing a song like Gaston to life, that’s like a dream come true. So it was incredible.”
How did you feel when you tried on your costumes for the first time?
Josh laughed, “Oh, I can tell you, Luke with his body felt a lot better than I did. I can tell you right off the bat.”
Luke detailed, “I’ve always said, and I always will say, because I think it is a massive part of my creation of a character, especially somebody like Gaston – the look is half of his ego. The hair and the fitted red leather. We went to about four or five incarnations of that leather jacket before we found the right color of blood red, that represented the sinister part of his nature. I don’t know if you noticed, but that red jacket which is obviously so synonymous with Gaston in the original, only goes on when he puts Maurice into the carriage to lock him up. That’s the first time you see it and we made that conscious decision. When you put something on like that, there was so much work in it. Those buttons all had antlers on each and I had a pinky ring which was an antler impressed into red stone.”
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He continued, “It was all antler themed, as you can imagine. It looked fantastic and you put the wig on and there you go. I remember taking it off on the last day and my hair and makeup lady’s like, ‘Okay, well, say goodbye to the final time, see you, Gaston.’ and she took it off, knowing, ‘Well, hello you.’ and she was like, “Oh No.’ I was joking, obviously. He was a hard character to let go, I think we both felt very sad to let them go. We’d had so much fun and brought so much happiness to villains, it is to make people laugh. That’s quite a gift, you know, ’cause usually you just make them hate you, but we had the opportunity to do both. They love you at the end, like full redemption.”
Josh elaborated, “That was important, with LeFou in particular. The character in the original movie is a product of cartoon conceits, right? He has his teeth knocked out. He’s literally thrown across rooms by Gaston multiple times. There is a part where snow falls on him and makes him a snowman. Which I fought to bring in the movie. For me it was about adding dimension, I think for every character and one of the things that I really loved about LeFou in this particular version is, he does have this interesting arc where he starts to question the blind devotion that he has to this person, who during the course of the film turns into the real monster.”
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He continued, “That was such an interesting thing to play and again, we didn’t want to just literally recreate a movie that in of itself is pretty perfect. You can’t do that, you have to add, you have to keep building on the legacy of that which everybody is awaiting and looking forward to, but also give them new surprises. For us the new songs, the new moment, all of it adds up in its collective experience, that feels old in the best way but also new in an amazing way, and that was so important to us. ”
What made you truly sign onto do this iconic movie?
Josh laughed as he shared, “The MONEY. No, honestly, I literally would have done this movie for nothing. The reason I signed on was because it was so iconic. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was my FROZEN. This was the movie I saw five times as a kid. You know what I mean? Just recreating these iconic moments that I grew up with, knowing that my daughters are gonna grow up with this as hopefully their definitive version of the story. (Luke added ‘With the creepy smile’) With that they looked at the first poster and they were terrified. Their response was like, the little kid seeing Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING for the first time, ‘Why are you so creepy DaDa?’.”
Josh continued, “I was saying this to Luke. I can’t think of a big screen musical, live action, that my kids have seen on the silver screen in their lifetimes. That is unacceptable to me coming from musical theater. We’re not gonna take ‘em to MOULIN ROUGE, we’re not gonna take them to LES MIS. You can’t take ‘em to NINE. This is gonna be for many of your kids and my kids certainly, the first time they ever see a musical screen that isn’t animated. That’s huge.”
Luke revealed, “My godchildren are very young and I’ve got lots of kids in my family, who are just a little tired of me noodling movies that they can’t watch. So the day that I got offered it, the first thing I did was text all their parents and just say to them, ‘I’m gonna be in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and they can finally come to the cinema.’ They all were at the London premiere and weirdly,they were happy but also a little sad that I was the bad guy. I’m finally the baddest guy, it’s a process, all right?”
Was there a lot of improve on the set?
Josh shared, “Yes, the end of Gaston. I literally did about 30 different versions of that and then the one that they chose was the one that I had never spelled it out and just realized I’m illiterate. Every time we shot it it was different ’cause every time my goal was to make Luke laugh. We got him in trouble, but there were so many opportunities.”
He gave us a little more insight, “There’s also a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor, that I hope you’ll see on the Blu-Ray and the Extras. There was a great scene when we come into the village. When Belle’s in trouble and we come in and Gaston hands me his, gun and the gun goes off in my hand. You just hear a cow die in the background and it was such a funny moment.”
Was there any parts that were challenging for you?
Luke explained, “The physicality of the fight sequence at the end was going to be demanding because it took a lot of stunt rehearsals and training. I had to quite a few times on weekends I came in, and they had a big cherry picker which they would raise another six feet and then another I was on cables and I had to land, I had to jump and I just sort of reflect what the Beast was doing on another – terror, doing it in his beastly way where I am just a human being. So I have to find a way about doing it like Spiderman with long hair.”
He continued, “I managed to get it by the time we shot it but I think it was about a 42 foot high leap that I do in the film with a cable. It’s a trust exercise, your trusting the stunt guy with your life. It’s an interesting thing to do, but I found that quite challenging and very rewarding…”
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What do you hope your characters of Gaston and LeFou, are leaving for this generation?
Josh explained, “Well, that’s a great question. I think that Gaston in particular, represents a really interesting character. I think one of the most important lessons to be learned comes surprisingly out of that character. Which is, you have a guy who is provoking fear based on a character that nobody knows, that people are scared of because they’ve never seen him. They’re afraid of what he’s capable of, feeding into those fears and going to attack someone because you’ve never met them before but what you believe they’re capable of. Well, that’s as relevant today as it was when BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was first written.”
He continued, “I think that theme is the thing that I hope kids can look at and they’re not gonna understand it now, but that’s something as they revisit this film over and over and over again – this idea of never judging a book by its cover, is so important. That’s what I would say I hope they take from it.”
Luke added, “Love conquers hate and that’s basically the running theme. To watch it all being carried by a very strong female lead character, who basically at the end of the day, guys, she saves the Prince. If it wasn’t for her, this story wouldn’t have the backbone that it does it comes from a very fearless, independently spirited young woman who reads, who’s intellectual., who wants to learn.”
He elaborated, “Who sees that there are no boundaries to her world. It might be right there and then, but she knows there’s a world out there to conquer and to discover. She doesn’t need a man to do it, she’s a 21st Century Disney Princess. Emma was exactly the right person to portray that character, a role model , the best compliment Emma could have…and Belle, in this version, as a brilliant role model for young ladies and young boys as well. It’s not just one sex, it’s both sexes can look at this young woman and see, that’s how you should be.”
Josh furthered, “That’s the other thing that I think is so wonderful about this movie. and what Bill Condon has done. Is just the inclusiveness of it all, I think that that’s a great lesson.”
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Would you have a favorite scene in the movie?
Luke detailed, “It would have to be for me, the Gaston tavern sequence. For two reasons. One, it’s my song. Two, it was the one piece of the whole film where we got to rehearse for four to five weeks. It was incredibly technical. We had all the villagers in the room. There’s vignette stories going on which you have to watch it a few times to notice. All that took a lot of time and honestly, the music was playing throughout the whole thing. We had to get onto roofs, onto tables and there were swords, there was murals that we have to reflect in the back of each shot. It was a lot of stuff going on, which took time and development and collaboration and a lot of working it out. That’s what we come from, we have come from the theater, we’re used to that rehearsal experience and to have that on a film was a joy...“
Josh agreed, “Not to sound redundant, but it is Gaston. It’s so rewarding to watch an audience now, after two years of working on this in some capacity or another. To now share it with an audience and see the adrenaline boost that it gives the film when all of a sudden, out of nowhere this up tempo song with people dancing on the table and you can feel the energy of the audience wanting to jump into that and raise a glass to Gaston alongside of you. That is the brilliance again of these Menken and Ashman songs, is they are so unbelievably addicting and Luke and I have now been singing this song in one way or another, for 2 years, (laughing and joking) it’s not because we want to, it’s because we can’t stop. It’s because we are literally haunted by these songs.“
Luke explained, “The other night when we had the world premiere here in Los Angeles and people clapped at the end of our number. We’ve done what we needed to do here. We are taking people out of the world in which we live, and made them escape into this wonderfully technicolor version of this story. Which we are really proud of.”
It was hard not to be entertained by the back and forth conversations, great rapport, and of course the smiles and laughter coming from Luke Evans and Josh Gad, you will definitely enjoy their performances in the film. WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BEAUTY AND THE BEAST? CONTINUE TO FOLLOW ALONG AS I POST DETAILS FROM THE BE OUR GUEST EVENT.
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ABOUT DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST:
The story and characters audiences know and love come to spectacular life in the live-action adaptation of Disney’s animated classic “Beauty and the Beast,” a stunning, cinematic event celebrating one of the most beloved tales ever told. “Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a Beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart of the true Prince within.
The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle’s father; Josh Gad as LeFou, Gaston’s long-suffering aide-de-camp; Ewan McGregor as Lumière, the candelabra; Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe, the wardrobe; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the feather duster; Hattie Morahan as the enchantress; and Nathan Mack as Chip, the teacup; with Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts.
Directed by Bill Condon based on the 1991 animated film, “Beauty and the Beast,” the screenplay is written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos and produced by Mandeville Films’ David Hoberman, p.g.a. and Todd Lieberman, p.g.a. with Jeffrey Silver, Thomas Schumacher and Don Hahn serving as executive producers.
Alan Menken, who won two Academy Awards® (Best Original Score and Best Song) for the animated film, provides the score, which includes new recordings of the original songs written by Menken and Howard Ashman, as well as three new songs written by Menken and Tim Rice. Celine Dion will also perform the Original Song called “How Does a Moment Last Forever”.
To learn more, like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST at facebook.com/DisneyBeautyAndTheBeast and Follow on Twitter at twitter.com/beourguest as well as on Instagram at instagram.com/beautyandthebeast. For updates, visit the official website at movies.disney.com/beauty-and-the-beast-2017.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST OPENS IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE ON MARCH 17TH, 2017!
Carlee @ FLL
A special thank you goes out the Walt Disney Studios for providing this information and materials about Beauty and the Beast.
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