A revival of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” was mooted. “When I die, if I get an obituary in The New York Times, Josh’s name will also be in it,” Rannells said, somewhat darkly.Īnd after they departed “The Book of Mormon,” each for a quickly canceled sitcom (“1600 Penn” for Gad, “The New Normal” for Rannells), they would often talk about how they might work together again. “That camaraderie and friendship and love and sense of family, it was very clear offstage as well.” “Onstage, they played very different people who end up becoming each other’s best friends,” she said in a recent interview. James, their “Mormon” co-star, recalled watching it begin.
“I can say that now.” Rannells, sipping his Diet Coke, didn’t deny it.ĭespite that mean streak, a friendship endures. I’m a bundle of anxiety when it comes to getting lines right.” Gad said that he is also a hypochondriac and that sometimes, offstage during “The Book of Mormon,” Rannells would suggest possible diseases for him. “I’m a bundle of anxiety when it comes to learning dances. “I definitely am more anxious than he is,” Gad said over dinner.
Collaborators I spoke with compared them to famous comic duos - Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello.
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Andrew knows how to just hold himself with grace and dignity and then just go for it.”Įach has a different process, a different style, a different affect. Love me.’ Josh is just out there,” he said. “Josh’s comedy basically just says, ‘Watch me. This is more or less their way, with Gad as an avatar of chaos and Rannells in smirking control.Ĭasey Nicholaw, the director of “The Book of Mormon,” had noted this contrast. Or maybe he gave him a mild version of the Heimlich maneuver. He also riffed on a line from “Sunset Boulevard”: “We taught the world new ways to dream.” He had burst into the rehearsal room after the lunch break singing “Unchained Melody” with heavy vibrato. Given his typical energy levels, this seemed like a bad idea. Rannells was wearing a shirt and shorts in complementary greens, his wavy hair reliably perfect. Moments later they were standing cheek to cheek, singing spooky oo-oo-oos. The day after dinner, at a rehearsal space at the Alvin Ailey Extension, Gad and Rannells were stumbling through (with an emphasis, perhaps, on stumbling) the second act of “Gutenberg!” In a scene at the top of the act, as Bud and Doug introduced themselves to the audience, Rannells hit Gad in the face, perhaps accidentally. They had ordered identical meals and identical Diet Cokes. Both men were nominated for a Tony Award and both men lost out to Norbert Leo Butz for “Catch Me If You Can.” Somewhere along the way, they became close friends, which was apparent over dinner, a symphony of bits, riffs and callbacks between bites of tuna tartare and duck breast. “The Book of Mormon” opened in 2011, to rapturous reviews, with Rannells as the strait-laced Mormon missionary Elder Price and Gad as his co-evangelist Elder Cunningham, whose laces are a lot looser. Then again, Gad is almost always joking.) And I still had a grudge because you beat me out for ‘Jersey Boys.’” (It was unclear if Gad was joking. “I had that Tony locked until you walked in the door. And it really upset me,” Gad said, over dinner at Chez Josephine, a theater district mainstay where Rannells, in younger days, used to work the coat check. Confronted with Gad’s cyclone energy, he chose stillness. Rannells, a replacement actor in “Hairspray” and “Jersey Boys,” was not remotely famous. The producers wanted a celebrity opposite him, and they’d invited several to these tryouts.
Rannells was auditioning for “The Book of Mormon,” the new musical from the creators of “South Park.” Gad, then a correspondent on “The Daily Show,” had long been attached. No matter what Gad did during their scenes together, Rannells didn’t laugh. Josh Gad still remembers the first time he and Andrew Rannells met, in June 2010 in a Los Angeles audition suite.
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