Exclusive: Get FROZEN! Behind the Scenes of Disney's Animated Movie Musical with Santino Fontana

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Disney's latest film is the musical Frozen, which will kick off the Thanksgiving holiday weekend

And I'm here at Joe Allen with one of its stars, Santino Fontana. Welcome

Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. So, I love this film. It's one of my all-time favorite Disney films

Great, thank you. So, how did you get attracted to this? I, uh, there was a script..

Well, first of all, I came in to audition for, uh, Jamie Roberts, who's the casting director

for Tangled, originally. and she really liked me for that and she was the only one and then and then she had me come back

for at the time it was called the snow queen and that was a different version i auditioned for the

role of christoph who at the time was a tour guide to this small community and then they said it was

put on the shelf it was over and uh and then it came back a couple years later and this time they

wanted me to come back and the director Chris Buck remembered me and he asked me to come back

for the role of Hans and then I came in and auditioned and I sang um at the time the description

was kind of Gaston-esque but a little more heightened or a little more um uh royal and uh

so I sang uh I am pretty instead of I feel pretty and um and they liked that and then you know there

It was a long callback process of doing it over and over and over again

And then finally found out last summer, right after the workshop of Cinderella

So that was it. So when did you go in and start recording? Immediately. So I found out in July, and then I'd say the first session was in August

And I did five sessions overall, some in L.A., some here. And then a couple weeks ago, we saw it for the first time, and it's incredible

So what was it like watching yourself up there? really well it's not me that's you know it's bizarre it's the new you it's bizarre seeing

your voice coming out of someone that's not you that's what i could not wrap my head around so

the first time i saw the movie i couldn't tell you if i liked it i didn't like it all i could

i could not figure out because i also you don't read the script so i just knew my scenes so i knew

roughly what my character was going to do but even that changed uh without me knowing it so the rest

of the movie was a huge surprise. So the first time seeing it was me getting used to hearing my

voice come out of this guy with red hair and also getting the story. And then the second time

watching it, I was able to really get the movie and loved it. I thought it was so moving and funny

and exciting and action-filled. Yeah. Well, let's talk about working with your directors

Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. And Jennifer also wrote it. Yes. So how do you work on something

like this when you're just giving a voice. It's the best. It the best It the most it probably the most liberating I ever felt as an actor because your only job is to be a generator of options You not there to edit You not there to

decide what the best choice is. You're just, you're just, your job is to create a bunch of

material for them. So, you know, you would read a scene, they give you a scene and they kind of

tell you, this is what we're thinking is happening. This is what you see. This is, and they maybe show

you some slides of like, this is where we are. This is what's going on. And then you read the

scene not with the actor who's in the scene just with it with a reader and then you would read it

as many ways as they would let me read it as many ways as I thought it could go and uh and and then

they would offer up some ideas they would ask me if I had questions we would maybe try some different

lines they'd have me ad-lib or improv a little bit and then um that was it but so it was really

like a, like a, it's an actor's dream to be able to just unload all this creativity and then say

okay, you go do what you want with it. It's not my job. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have to repeat it. I

also don't have to adhere to some, to the script because I don't know the script. So I don't know

what's going to happen. So I'm just playing the scene. So let's talk a little bit about Hans. What

can you tell us about him without giving anything away? Sure. Hans is a Disney prince. He's a Disney

prince and he's looking for you know when he meets kristin bell's character anna i think they really

are almost looking at mirror images of each other they both are royal but they don't really fit in

they're both a little awkward um and they kind of find their what they're what they're needing

what they want and then as soon as uh he falls in love with anna with this great song that bobby

and Kristen Rowe called Love is an Open Door. Then, you know, craziness ensues and danger happens

and then Hans kind of steps up to the plate to take over while Anna goes and finds Elsa

the Dina Mintz-Else character. That's it. And then it changes in various ways

No one is what they appear to be in this movie, which is what I love about it. Yeah, let's talk about this beautiful score. Yeah

Now, the book is, I mean, the songs are incredible. And Christoph Becht also did the underscoring, which is also gorgeous

But, yeah, Bobby and Kristen wrote these really, you know, funny, moving, catchy songs, which are great

I mean, I heard, when I heard Let It Go, I was like, well, that's going to be sung forever. Every audition, you know, you're going to be walking down the audition hallways and hearing people singing that song

And I thought when we recorded Love's an Open Door, and I recorded that with Kristen

I said this is going to be sung like at weddings and in karaoke bars

You know, this is going to happen. And I think it's true. Yeah, it's a new beautiful Disney song

Yeah. So you recorded that together? We did. She was like eight months pregnant. I was in previews of Cinderella Flew out at night It was kind of like a crazy time period and recorded it together because I think they wanted to make sure the keys were right and they wanted to make sure that we synced up on it right And so yeah I flew out there for like eight hours sang the song and then came back to Do I Love You Because You Beautiful

You know, I was asking the girls and some of the guys

what it was like being a Disney character. I mean, was it ever a dream of yours to do a Disney film

You know, it's the cliche that you always hear actors say, oh, it was my dream

And I'm like, how many dreams do you have? Does everyone have a dream of playing this part? Every show someone's in, it's like, oh, it's my dream

No, every time. How many dreams of your life are realized? All of them, go away

This I have to say, though, in college, or in high school, in high school, my senior year of high school

there was a jazz choir that I was in at my local college

They let me sing it. And I remember we were singing in the car ride

Someone was singing A Whole New World because we were going to some jazz thing, concert

And someone said, you could be like a Disney voice. I was like, I would love to be at Disney World

I don't know that I ever said it would be my dream, but I'd say it's the closest to something as a kid

I remember watching Aladdin and loving Aladdin, loving Robin Williams in Aladdin

loving the character and the music. And I remember thinking, oh, this is so awesome

So to be able to be on the other side of that is pretty close to a dream come true

I mean, it's great. It's awesome. I could never have imagined it

What I love about what Disney has done is they use a lot of theater, Broadway actors, performers to do

the voices. Do you think it's easier having that background that it works well between Broadway

and these kind of films? I do. I think so totally. I mean, you know, not that long ago they used to have a different voice

for the acting compared to the singing and I think John Lasseter was the guy

who finally was like, no, we're going to find people who can do both because they're out there

and you know everybody in our cast Jonathan Groff Josh Gad me Dina

Kristen Bell was on Broadway everybody's Alan Tudyk everybody has a pretty strong

theater background and especially Broadway musicals so I think it's smart on their part

and I think it does benefit the movie definitely okay you are now

a Disney doll I'm a Disney doll how exciting is that that's really exciting

it really weird it also looks nothing like me so I okay with it But it I mean if it looked like me that would be trippy But he has red hair So you know there so many no and there like a box

and people and fans of Cinderella have sent me the doll to sign and send back to them

which I have done. It's hard to wrap your head around. Would you like to do more of these

Yeah. You're going to hire me? Oh, let's do it. We'll put something together

I would love to do more of these. I think it's, yeah, it's so fun. Because you're not stuck by anything visual

You can literally just let your imagination go wild and then let somebody else collaborate on that

So two princes. Do I see a trend here? No, and the trend will end this year

Trust me. You know me. I don't like doing anything too long. And these two princes are very different

Prince Hans is very, very, very different than Prince Topher. But my year of prince will come to an end

and then I'll find the next thing. So if you could sum up the best part of the experience with working on Frozen, what would it be for you

Oh, boy. I mean, it's been, I loved working with Jen and Chris and Peter Delveco, the producer

I loved that creative process. I think that was the, and then to be able to go away from it and be able to be surprised by this huge gift in a way that we've all been given because we're in it

and to be so proud of what it is. So proud to have been a small part of it

Because it's really, I mean, people, you know, they focus on the act, especially at this time of the process

They focus on us as the performers and for our performances, but they're really the animators' performances

Yeah. And that's, they took what we kind of, you know, we give a little idea and then they, you know

make it into this work of art. And that's, to be a part of that collaborative process is great

Well, it's a stunning film. Thank you for sitting with me on your day off

the beginning of your vacation from Cinderella. Yes. And we'll see all of you at the movies

Frozen kicks off on Thanksgiving weekend. For the first time in forever

I'm going to stop dreaming of. Be the girl in the movies, happy

If we don't do something soon, we'll all freeze to death. Stop the winter, please

Don't you see, I can't Let's go bring back summer I'm not leaving without you, Elsa

Olaf, you're melting Some people are worth melting for You're just moving out right this second

Hang in there, guys