Josh Gad is opening about about that controversial “exclusively gay moment” in 2017′s live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast If you forgot, the 43-year-old actor played Gaston’s (Luke Evans) faithful friend LeFou in the movie, which starred Emma Watson.
In the leadup to the movie’s release, director Bill Condon teased that the movie would be one of the first from Disney to feature a queer moment.
However, it wound up being a fleeting scene of Josh‘s character dancing with another man. The comments sparked controversy at the time, which Josh addressed in an except of his memoir “In Glad We Trust.” Keep reading to find out more… In an excerpt of the book obtained by Entertainment Weekly, Josh said that he did not consider the character to be queer while filming the movie. “I for one certainly didn’t exactly feel like LeFou was who the queer community had been wistfully waiting for,” he explained. “I can’t quite imagine a Pride celebration in honor of the ‘cinematic watershed 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 pissed.” He recalled a “casual (but ultimately seismic) conversation… about the specific nature of LeFou’s devotion to Gaston,” which took place between himself, Bill and the movie’s screenwriters.