Josh Gad opens up about that underwhelming “gay moment” in ‘Beauty & The Beast’
In Gad We Trust.The book came out Tuesday and Entertainment Weekly published some extracts yesterday. In it, the Frozen star, 43, talks about that much-hyped, blink-and-you-miss-it “gay moment” from Beauty And The Beast.The 2017 live-action remake starred Emma Watson, Dan Stevens and Kevin Kline.
Luke Evans played Gaston while Gad played Gaston’s sidekick and friend, LeFou.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.The movie was a big box office success, taking $1.26 billion worldwide.However, some gay viewers were left disappointed.
Ahead of its release, director Bill Condon, who is gay, told Attitude that moviegoers would finally get to see “a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”That “gay moment” turned out to be a fleeting shot of LeFou and Gaston dancing together at the movie’s end.Gad says in his book he felt the character was too peripheral to live up to Condon’s comments about him.“If I were gay, I’m sure I’d be pissed,” Gad says.“I for one certainly didn’t exactly feel like LeFou was who the queer community had been wistfully waiting for … 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.”Gad, who has been married to his wife, Ida Darvish since 2008, goes on to say he had a “casual” conversation during production with Condon and screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos about the nature of LeFou’s devotion to Gaston.“In the course of our discussions, we tried to distinguish whether or not LeFou loved Gaston or was in love with Gaston.”As Gad explains, they “ultimately landed on the side of LeFou was truly in awe of Gaston, and that was not driven by any sexual desire whatsoever but rather a deep-seated love, appreciation, and belief in this person he had served alongside in battle for many years.”Gad emphasizes the creative team “never once.
