Josh Gad Quotations

One of my top 10 favorite movies of all time was 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.' 'Team America' is a work of genius to me.

I went to drama school for four years at Carnegie Mellon, conservatory training before television comedy. I was doing Shakespeare and Chekov plays. It's about delivering on the promise of a $100,000 education and taking the shackles off and trying the hand at my craft. I'm thrilled with what I've seen so far.

It's funny, because '1600 Penn' was the first time I really started to read the reviews, because I am an executive producer and I wanted to see what people were enjoying and not enjoying as a means to an end, right?

If you can have heart as well as the comedy, it takes you a lot further. I think that that's what we were trying to do with 'Gigi.'

[ 1600 Penn] is an ensemble comedy about a family. It just happens to utilize the fact that my character is now being forced into this world as a jumping off point. But, in no way is it the crux of the series. It's simply an introduction to the world.

When you get into the series, the progression is much different. You actually have breathing room and the chance to sit down with each actor, which was a part of our process, to talk to them about their pasts.

I do have a dirty sense of humor.

In real life, Josh [Gad] is a different kind of lovable idiot. In real life, he's a much filthier idiot. He has a dirty sense of humor.

It's funny because 'The Book of Mormon' is 'The Book of Mormon' now. When I was doing it at the very beginning, and I was a part of it for four years and always believed in it, I never really knew if it was going to be more than a convention for 'South Park' fans.

When you're doing a pilot, you're doing it in this bubble that almost works against the creative impulse. You don't have time to get to know the actors first, and you have three writers, as opposed to a room full of writers.

There are certain TV shows that probably would have made me rich, and there are certain commitments I could have made that probably would have raised a lot of eyebrows that I didn't. But I don't look back at those decisions and say, 'Oh God, I'm such an idiot.

Part of our goal, in the episodes moving forward, is to deepen and dimensionalize every other character, to get into their relationships with each other, expand that stuff and really sink our teeth in.

My idol growing up was Charlie Chaplin. I was obsessed with him. I mean, while other kids were watching Jim Carrey and the likes in the '90s, I was watching Charlie Chaplin films, because I was a bit of a geek. I became obsessed with this idea of physical comedy.

Melissa McCarthy just opened this new movie, 'Identity Thief,' and Rex Reed, who's a known critic, wrote a scathing commentary on her weight. I think that weight designation is one of the last frontiers of bullying. I don't know what the right 'ism' for it is, but I think that there's a level of that that's happening that's certainly not okay.

I love polarizing people.

Josh Gad and I have been friends since the time he auditioned for Modern Family. I directed the pilot for that, and that's how we met.

I was like a Borscht Belt comedian trapped in the body of a 6-year-old. I was channeling Jackie Mason at 7.

I was trained as a straight dramatist.

I'm unfortunately very verbose too often.

I grew up on 'Lawrence' and 'Zhivago'. A legacy with not one but multiple timeless classics.

I feel like Jim Carrey is probably the closest thing to a true physical comedian that we have working today.

Hollywood is the kind of place that takes what you do well in one thing and manufactures it so the joy can be taken out of it.

The actual truth about Gad is it's one of the original 13 tribes of Israel, so you can actually trace my lineage back to, like, those guys who had, like, a hand in the Bible and have since become very famous from that. So I come from very famous lineage. Granted, they didn't have cameras back then, so none of them had TV shows.

I think physical comedy is an amazing asset because it tells a story that's more universal than just language and dialogue. I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. They're very powerful figures in my life.

Josh [Gad] does such an amazing job playing a lovable idiot. Not many people can do that, as convincingly as he can.

Religion is interesting because it brings out the best and the worst in humanity. It can be a source of good deeds, whether it's people from different spiritual backgrounds coming together to help other people in need after a crisis. But it's also a cause for war and bloodshed.

It's weird to say, but every time I look at my daughter and I see this little living breathing thing that came from me, that represents all of the hopes and dreams that I would want for her, I see a miracle.

One of my top 10 favorite movies of all time was 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.' 'Team America' is a work of genius to me.

I met Jon Lovett, who was just coming off of three years of being a presidential speech writer and had just arrived here to be a comedy writer in Hollywood. I thought he was super green, in terms of this world, but he knows so much about the world that we're attempting to write about.

There was a 10- and 8-year difference between us, so my brothers were into tormenting me and I was into getting away from them.

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

I think 'The Book of Mormon' has made that difference in its field. It changed the game. It's something that 20 years from now people will still be talking about, hopefully. That's my goal as an artist, as a creator, as a work for hire, is to choose projects that make people think, make people talk, and make people interested in having a dialogue.

Josh [Gad] is such an amazing improviser and is so good when the material is flowing from him that sometimes, if a written scene isn't working quite right, I'll tell him that we've got it and that he can just play. He'll blow us away with some super weird stuff and some wild things that we might use bits and pieces of in the edit, and then I'll say, "Just for good measure, let's do one more of the scripted version."

I really love the traditional aspects of Judaism. My wife is born and raised a Catholic and I enjoy celebrating those rituals as well. I am very spiritual but not in any way religious, no.

I don't know if I'd call myself a prodigy, but I was a big forensics competitor in high school, and then during college I spent some time working at speech and debate camps as a coach.

How do you top 'Mormon?' I get sent scripts all the time and I don't know what I would do next. What do you do after that? So I think if you do see me onstage, you'll see me in something dramatic, maybe, or you'll see me try my hand at something else. Perhaps fail, terribly, but try.

We use improv in all kinds of fun ways. Sometimes it's to invent or discover new things, sometimes it's to weird out the other actors, and sometimes it's to create a sense of fun, to find new things inside the scripted lines.

Coming off of 'Book of Mormon,' I had a lot of opportunities. I didn't want to do TV, actually. I really wanted to get paid nothing and keep doing theater at all costs.

Acting comes natural to me. What I do enjoy is meeting people that I've idolized for years. I mean, I was talking about bringing up a child with Edie Falco yesterday.

When you're doing a show like 'The Book of Mormon,' you're completely spent by the time the show is over.

I certainly never imagined 80-year-olds singing along, like they were watching Cats. I'm fascinated by that kind of pop cultural zeitgeist that it's attached itself to.

When you have a kid, it changes your life. It reminds you, this is my life now: I'm responsible for this tiny person. It's so surreal.

When I left college, I was out of work for three years. I had this dream of being on 'SNL,' and that was all I could imagine.

I was being flirted with for 'Modern Family,' which my wife still hasn't let me live down, but it's one of those things where that show is so brilliant because the casting couldn't be any more perfect. It wouldn't have been right for me, and I wouldn't have been right for it.