With Central Park Season 2 now streaming on Apple TV+, I recently spoke to Josh Gad about making the animated musical comedy series. If you haven’t seen this fantastic show, Central Park is about the family that lives in NYC's Central Park in NYC (the dad, Leslie Odom Jr., is the park manager) and the controlling woman (Stanley Tucci) who has made it her mission to claim the park as her own. Each episode is loaded with terrific songs, an adorable dog, characters that you care about, and tons of feel-good moments. Central Park is one my favorite series and I dare you to watch the first episode and not get hooked. Central Park was created by Loren Bouchard (Bob's Burgers), Nora Smith, and Josh Gad. The voice cast also features Emmy Raver-Lampman, Tituss Burgess, Kathryn Hahn, Daveed Diggs, and Gad.
During the interview, Gad talked about what would surprise people to learn about the making of Central Park, the challenge of trying to create amazing songs in every episode, how long it takes from writing to getting it on air, what fans can look forward to in Season 2 and Season 3, and more. In addition, with Gad set to star in Shrunk (the sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) as the son of Wayne Szalinski, the scientist originally played by Rick Moranis, I was curious how that project was taking shape. He said:
“Fingers crossed think we’re going to hopefully be shooting early next year. That is the status right now. Now the status is ever changing but we’re all feeling really confident about it.”
Finally, another big project Gad is involved in is the Beauty and the Beast prequel series, which will see the return of Luke Evans and Gad as Gaston and LeFou. Gad says it’s one of the most ambitious projects he’s ever been apart of and went on to say:
“Luke and I are so excited about bringing these characters back to life alongside a brilliant and unique new talent in Briana Middleton playing this incredible new character named Tilly. Liesl Tommy, who's our director, is planning to do some unbelievably ambitious things with this series as well as our showrunners, Adam [Horowitz] and Eddie [Kitsis], who are really, really, really going places I think audiences are not necessarily ready for. I cannot be more excited about this show. I think it's going to be enormously special."
Check out the full interview in the player above and below is a list of everything we talked about. The first three episodes of Central Park Season 2 are now available on Apple TV+.
Josh Gad:
- If he could get the financing for any project what would he make and why?
- What would surprise people to learn about the making of Central Park?
- How long does it take from when they start writing to getting it on the air?
- Central Park Season 1 had a serialized storyline while Season 2 is more individual stories. What will Season 3 be like?
- How tough is it to create these amazing songs in every episode?
- What’s the status of Shrunk?
- When will he be filming the Beauty and the Beast prequel series?
