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‘Angry Birds Movie’: Why Actor Josh Gad Initially Said ‘No’ To The Film

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 06:07 PST, Sep 23, 2015

Actor Josh Gad was apparently not very eager to join the cast of The Angry Birds Movie at first.

In an August interview with IGN to promote the summer film Pixels, Josh Gad was asked to talk about the big-screen adaptation of the popular mobile game.

After confirming that the movie was “really a thing,” the Tony Award nominee dropped a bomb by admitting that he initially declined the offer to join the cast.

“In fact, when I was approached about it, I actually said no, for many reasons, the most significant of which was I did Olaf [in Frozen] and I don’t want to play another animated character, especially right now.”

Seeing as how the 2013 Oscar-winning film Frozen generated over $1.3 billion at the box-office worldwide, it is not surprising that Josh Gad would want to stay away from jumping into another animated film project right away.

However, the 34-year-old actor went on to say that the producer’s pitch of The Angry Birds Movie helped to change his mind about joining the Sony Pictures and Rovio Entertainment project.

“The producer was like ‘Just let me kind of pitch out this movie to you’ and did this reel for me of what he was thinking about… It was this 30-minute visual pitch and it blew my socks off.”

Josh also compared the overall vision of The Angry Birds Movie to another computer-animated action comedy film — The LEGO Movie.

“It’s really irreverent, and like that LEGO Movie sensibility it’s subversive and funny and unexpectedly smart and really beautiful. Actually gorgeous. The little I’ve seen of it has really impressed me.”

Variety reports that Josh Gad provides the voice of Chuck. He is included within a cast filled with talented actors and actresses, including Saturday Night Live alums Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis. Producer John Cohen expressed his excitement over the leading cast of the film in addition to the fact that they are “surrounded by an all-star ensemble of emerging comedic talent.”

Fans and critics of the overall Angry Birds franchise will be able to see Josh Gad and the other cast members bring these animated characters to life on the big screen when the film is released in theaters next May.

[Image Credit: Grant Lamos IV & Andrew Goodman/Getty Images]

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