{"id":1220,"date":"2023-11-30T12:33:17","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T17:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2023-11-30T12:33:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T17:33:17","slug":"do-you-want-to-build-a-movie-an-oral-history-of-frozen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/do-you-want-to-build-a-movie-an-oral-history-of-frozen\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Want to Build a Movie? An Oral History of Frozen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck, and more of the cast and creative team reflect on the birth of an unlikely modern Disney classic.<\/em><\/p>\n

About 10 years ago, Josh Gad<\/strong> wanted to buy his daughter an Elsa dress. It shouldn\u2019t have been difficult. Frozen,<\/em> the Disney musical about the aforementioned ice queen and her perky younger sister, Anna, had only been out in theaters for a few weeks. And Gad was starring in the movie as well, as Elsa\u2019s lovable snow creation, Olaf.<\/p>\n

Then the actor hit a roadblock. \u201cI couldn\u2019t find one,\u201d he says. \u201cI called Disney, and then I emailed Bob Iger.<\/strong> I was like, \u2018I\u2019ve used every resource to find my daughter this dress.\u2019 And he goes, \u2018Josh, I was only able to get the last one by ordering it from our resort in Hawaii.\u2019 And I was like, if the CEO of Disney can\u2019t get his hands on this, then something is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you have a child, or know a child, or have seen a child in the past 10 years, you know just how right Gad was. After opening on November 27, 2013, Frozen<\/em> earned almost $1.3 billion globally, becoming the highest-grossing animated movie of all time until it was surpassed by Disney\u2019s 2019 remake of The Lion King<\/em> (and, that same year, Frozen II<\/em>). Its characters became icons, as instantly recognizable to the preschool set as Mickey Mouse. Its songs were inescapable, especially Elsa\u2019s Oscar-winning power ballad \u201cLet It Go.\u201d More remarkably, its popularity has hardly waned for a full decade\u2014even (especially?) among kids who weren\u2019t yet born when Anna first asked her sister if she wanted to build a snowman. Iger recently named Frozen<\/em> one of the company\u2019s most successful franchises ever\u2014big talk from the corporation behind Marvel, Star Wars, and countless fairytale princesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways, it seems like yesterday,\u201d says producer Peter Del Vecho<\/strong> of the first film\u2019s release. \u201cBut really, it\u2019s never left us. Every other week now, I still meet with publishing and consumer products\u201d about Frozen<\/em> brand extensions. \u201cIt just has never, never ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If you\u2019d told any of this to Jonathan Groff<\/strong> in 2013, he\u2019d have done a double take. \u201cI have to say, there was not this sense when it was being made that we were making a blockbuster movie,\u201d says the actor, who costars as Anna\u2019s strong but sensitive love interest, Kristoff. \u201cThat was not the expectation. Tangled<\/em> was the animated film before Frozen,<\/em> and that had done well, but it wasn\u2019t a huge box office hit. So it felt like they were making another fairytale movie, and we\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t precisely how it felt for the rest of the film\u2019s cast and creative team, particularly cowriters and codirectors Chris Buck<\/strong> and Jennifer Lee.<\/strong> Frozen<\/em>\u2019s massive success came after a frenzied, sometimes tortuous development and production process. Entire script drafts were written and tossed as the film\u2019s deadline\u2014accelerated by an entire year partway through the production\u2014approached. \u201cI know there was actually fear in the studio that second to last screening, fear about our movie,\u201d says Del Vecho.<\/p>\n

Then, miraculously, everything fell into place. At the film\u2019s final screening, Lee remembers, songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez<\/strong> was shocked: \u201cShe walked out and went, \u201cWhen did this get good?\u201d<\/p>\n

When did it? We sat down with all of Frozen<\/em>\u2019s major players\u2014including Idina Menzel<\/strong> and Kristen Bell<\/strong>\u2014to find out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the beginning, there was Elsa<\/em>. In 2008, Buck\u2014the director of Disney\u2019s<\/em> Tarzan\u2014successfully pitched the studio a loose adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson\u2019s fable<\/em> The Snow Queen, which follows a determined young girl named Gerda as she tries to rescue her playmate Kai from the titular chilly witch. The studio had attempted to adapt the same material<\/em> several times before<\/em>, though none of them had come to fruition. From the start, Buck\u2019s version was going to be about a woman who isn\u2019t saved by a handsome prince. He changed Gerda\u2019s name but kept her as the story\u2019s protagonist, even inserting it into the title:<\/em> Anna and the Snow Queen.<\/p>\n

Chris Buck (codirector and cowriter):<\/strong><\/em> It opened with Elsa\u2019s wedding, and she was jilted at the altar. She ran out of the church, ran up to the mountains, and made a wish on a star so that she would never feel this pain again. The wish froze her heart, so she would never feel pain\u2014but she also couldn\u2019t feel love again. She couldn\u2019t feel anything. She was basically a villain. Anna and Elsa, they knew each other. They lived in the same village. Believing that Elsa was not a bad person, and was not evil, Anna was the one that was going to save Elsa.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Disney held a preliminary table read for<\/em> Anna and the Snow Queen featuring Megan Mullally as the titular villain, Josh Gad as her evil henchman\u2014a wisecracking snowman named Olaf<\/em>\u2014Santino Fontana as a townsperson,<\/em> and Ginnifer Goodwin as Elsa\u2019s naive foil, Anna.<\/em><\/p>\n

Josh Gad (Olaf):<\/em> At that time, the story was vastly different. It was a story about an evil queen named Elsa and a young heroine named Anna. It was much more, I would say, like previous Disney films\u2014just more traditional storytelling. [Olaf] was like a Iago [from Aladdin<\/em>].<\/p>\n

Santino Fontana (Hans):<\/em> Jamie Roberts was casting Tangled,<\/em> and she came and saw me in Billy Elliot,<\/em> and I met with her, and then I didn\u2019t end up getting that job, of course. And then she called me back for this movie. I can\u2019t remember the character\u2019s name, but it was a completely different setup\u2014I was a tour guide in a magical snow land or something.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gad:<\/em> And the movie disappeared.<\/p>\n

Fontana:<\/em> They shelved that movie. She told me, \u201cDid great, but it\u2019s not moving forward with anyone. The movie\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

The studio did indeed<\/em> shelve the movie<\/em><\/a>. But Disney revived it<\/em> a year later<\/em><\/a>, following the success of<\/em> Tangled, another fairytale-focused story that became one of the highest-grossing films of 2010. Still, though,<\/em> Anna and the Snow Queen wasn\u2019t gelling\u2014even after they found their Anna and the title was changed,<\/em> Tangled-style, to the more evocative, less princessy<\/em> Frozen.<\/p>\n

Kristen Bell (Anna):<\/em> I had auditioned for Tangled.<\/em> I mean, spoiler, I didn\u2019t get it. But Jamie [Sparer Roberts], the casting director at Disney, had pulled me aside after my audition. She said, \u201cI think I want you to meet Chris Buck, who\u2019s directing our next movie, which will be in a year or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

We sat, we had bagels together, and he told me about Anna and the Snow Queen<\/em>, and said, “I think you’re right for it. We’ll give you a call.” And then, sure enough, about six months later, I got a call that Chris wanted to start on the movie.<\/p>\n

Chris Buck:<\/em> It just didn’t work. We had a screening or two [based on the revamped script], and it just wasn’t jiving yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Peter Del Vecho (producer):<\/em> No one could really relate to Elsa, because she wasn\u2019t human enough. She was too distant.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> We even had designs where she was blue at one point.<\/p>\n

Then came a crucial brainstorming session where someone in the Disney inner circle\u2014nobody can remember quite who\u2014made a suggestion: What if Anna and Elsa weren\u2019t acquaintances, but relatives? What if they were sisters?<\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> What that does to a script is it makes it much more real. There aren’t really that many villains in life\u2014not as many as there are movies. But there’s a lot of drama between sisters. There’s a lot of turmoil when love is that deep. I have two girls right now, and they love each other ferociously, and I watch them say the nastiest things to each other.<\/p>\n

The sisters idea clicked the movie\u2019s plot into place, and was also instrumental in attracting another pair of collaborators: songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who had originally entered the Disney fold when they wrote the songs for the<\/em> Finding Nemo musical that still plays regularly at Disney World.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Robert Lopez (music and lyrics):<\/em> That’s when we came aboard. They pitched me the whole story, such as it was, and showed me some of the images that they were playing with. The only thing that ran through my mind was, “I cannot wait to tell Kristen about this.” They had these pictures of young Anna and Elsa: Elsa was throwing up some snow magic, and Anna was running around in circles. It just reminded me of our daughters, and Kristen also has twin sisters who are much younger than her. I knew that it would be something Kristen had a lot to say about.<\/p>\n

Making Elsa similar in age to Anna had a second positive domino effect: prompting the team to cast Tony winner Idina Menzel as the film\u2019s second lead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Del Vecho:<\/em> When we were auditioning for Elsa, we asked Bobby and Kristen, what are some songs that we could suggest people sing when they come in? And they listed several songs, many of which I didn’t know. So I went on YouTube for those, and they were all Idina Menzel songs.<\/p>\n

Idina Menzel (Elsa):<\/em> I went in for Tangled<\/em> and put my voice down. I didn’t get it because I fell between the cracks. My age was wrong to be either the evil mom or Rapunzel. So then, the casting director admittedly bootlegged that recording of me and kept it on her phone for a long time. We knew that they were going to be casting for this new movie they were working on. And so she talked me up, and played my little recording from Tangled.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> There were other names thrown out that were circling the Snow Queen role that were not Idina’s age demographic. So, the second it was Idina, they decided it would be sisters.<\/p>\n

Del Vecho:<\/em> We hadn\u2019t cast [Bell and Menzel] yet, but we asked them to come for the table read. None of the songs have been written yet, but we wanted to show the power of it being a musical, the power of these two women singing.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Lee (codirector and cowriter):<\/em> So they sang a song together.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> \u201cWind Beneath My Wings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menzel:<\/em> It was actually Kristen’s idea to do \u201cWind Beneath My Wings\u201d as a duet. We learned that in my house at the piano and then figured out what our little harmonies would be. And then we sat around [then-Disney Animation head] John Lasseter, each of us, and we read through the script and then sang the song together. And that’s how we got the job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Buck:<\/em> Bob [Lopez] and Kristen [Anderson-Lopez] were there, and they’re like, \u201cOh my gosh\u2014good luck to us<\/em>,\u201d because that song was so powerful coming out in both of their voices.<\/p>\n

The rest of the cast began to take shape. Fontana was brought back to play Hans, an apparent Prince Charming who woos Anna before revealing himself as<\/em> Frozen\u2019s actual villain. Another Broadway veteran was cast as Anna\u2019s second love interest, mountain man Kristoff<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Groff (Kristoff):<\/em> I sang a Stephen Sondheim song from my audition: \u201cEverybody Says Don’t\u201d from Anyone Can Whistle<\/em>. And I remember feeling like I’m never going to get this. A couple of months after the audition, I got a call saying that I was in the final three. They take your audition and they pair it with Kristen Bell’s voice, and whichever voice of the three of us paired the best with Kristen was the person that was going to get the job.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> Chris said, “Well, there is this guy who came in, Jonathan Groff. He’s not what we were thinking at all, but you need to hear him.” And they played Jonathan’s voice, and I went, “Oh my God. It’s like butter.” Everyone was swooning\u2014men and women, everyone. His voice was incredible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gad, who\u2019d broken big as the star of<\/em> The Book of Mormon on Broadway since the days of<\/em> Anna and the Snow Queen, was once again cast as Olaf\u2014though he almost had to drop out of the movie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Del Vecho:<\/em> He was doing a movie for a competitor, and the competitor told him that if he does our movie, he’ll be let go. And I remember calling Josh, and saying, “You need to do both.”<\/p>\n

Gad:<\/em> I was attached to a Dreamworks animated movie called Me and My Shadow<\/em>. And at that time, Jeffrey Katzenberg had a very healthy rivalry with the Disney company, and he basically created a Sophie’s choice for me where I had to choose between projects.<\/p>\n

Del Vecho:<\/em> They even put restrictions on what Josh could do: he couldn’t publicize [Frozen<\/em>], he couldn’t do press. And we said, okay, we\u2019ll agree to that. And that other project, I think it got canceled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gad:<\/em> To the best of my knowledge, what happened was they had released a couple of movies that were more adult-skewing that didn’t work. Their strategy became, I think, more kid-oriented stuff. It’s a bummer because it was beautiful. But on the flip side, I don’t think I ever would’ve done Frozen<\/em> had it not gone that way.<\/p>\n

Though the cast was in place, the film\u2019s script was still far from its final form<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Anderson-Lopez:<\/em> The first thing we wrote was an eight-minute opening number called \u201cWe Know Better.\u201d It went through [Anna and Elsa\u2019s] whole childhood, up to the point where they had gone in a different direction. Like many eight minute opening numbers, it never made it into the movie.<\/p>\n

Groff:<\/em> I remember I was a hoarder at one point. I had this giant sleigh, I had all these tchotchkes\u2014just random socks and suitcases and objects. It was a sleigh full of junk, basically.<\/p>\n

Anderson-Lopez:<\/em> Originally, Anna was almost a bridezilla\u2014a Glinda kind of character.<\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> Anna had an air about her that was not familiar to me. I remember that there was a point in the script when Kristoff brought her flowers and she was trying to be very nice, but telling him it was the wrong color yellow. And that is not something I can relate to, having being handed flowers and telling someone it’s the wrong color.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She was very nice, but she was more of a perfectionist. And as with many Disney characters, she was bubbly and outgoing, but there wasn’t a sense of vulnerability to her. So, I couldn’t find my way into the character. And when I was recording, I said that numerous times. I don’t know what gave me the moxie to say that. I was like, “Do you think she would really remind him again that the flowers were the wrong color?”<\/p>\n

Groff:<\/em> There were fight scenes between me and Hans at one point. They were trying to find the tone. They were trying to find the heart.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> We did know Hans was going to be a villain, but we just hadn’t decided when. There was a big snowman battle that was really overwhelming to think about.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Menzel:<\/em> I would show up, and I’d see the designs of the Blue Elsa on the wall for a while, and that was exciting. And then six months later, you come back like, nope, no blue<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Everything came to a head in the spring of 2012, when the creative team learned that Disney was moving up<\/em> Frozen\u2019s release date\u2014and the film<\/em> would be coming out a year earlier than they\u2019d originally planned. Then they held a screening of their work-in-progress that met an icy reception.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> This just wasn’t the right recipe. It wasn’t as special as it could be.<\/p>\n

Lopez:<\/em> That screening\u2014it was such a horrible moment, because the whole thing collapsed. Chris had said, “Listen, everybody. It might be rough, it might be a bloodbath, but at the very least, we’ll all go to Dairy Queen. We do this after every screening. We go to the mall, and it’s just down the road, and we’ll go to Dairy Queen and we’ll drown in our sorrows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson-Lopez:<\/em> \u201cWe’ll all get blizzards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lopez:<\/em> Yeah. Then, after that screening, he was like, “Guys, I don’t think we’re going to Dairy Queen.”<\/p>\n

But something positive came out of that disaster: a set of notes on the movie by Jennifer Lee, a screenwriter who was then working on the script for the 2012 Disney feature<\/em> Wreck-It Ralph.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> I wasn’t very nice about some things. I wrote “Kill the snowman,\u201d because I just didn’t like the personality.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> Well, he was annoying.<\/p>\n

Gad:<\/em> I recently presented an award for her, and she revealed for the first time at that ceremony that that was her note, to kill the snowman. I was like, “Oh God, I had no idea.” But I think that there was rightfully a feeling that it was a little annoying and generic<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> He was persnickety and mean. Because this is when Elsa was a villain. And Anna, I felt, was… This mountain man’s teaching her everything. The women were against each other, too. And I think I just felt… Personally, I kept saying, if you really want to make this about a different kind of true love and compassion, then it’s hard because they’re against each other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Del Vecho [speaking to Lee]<\/em>:<\/strong> You weren’t on the movie yet, but you gave notes, and we could tell that the type of notes you were giving was the movie that Chris wanted.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t just<\/em> mean.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> No, that was the thing. You think your notes were rough, but that’s exactly what the movie needed.<\/p>\n

Buck and his team decided to change course entirely, rewriting the movie from the ground up. They officially recruited Lee to cowrite the script\u2014and, eventually, to co-direct the film as well, making her the first woman to helm a Disney animated movie.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> Especially when you’re a solo director, and you don’t have that other person to sort of bounce things off of\u2014there was something in my head I wanted, but it wasn’t on the screen yet. And I wasn’t sure how to get there yet. There were fragments of ideas, but nothing was there yet.<\/p>\n

So I came and sat on your desk, and asked if you would be interested in writing [Frozen<\/em>]. And you had never written a musical before. I know that was a concern. We said, “We’re going to do a two-day offsite. Just come to the offsite and see what you think.” And on our first day, there were lots of ideas being thrown around, and then we broke for dinner. And Jenn [Lee] didn\u2019t come. You charted out the movie, and when we came back from dinner, you said something to the effect of, “I think I can write this too. I think I can see it now.”<\/p>\n

Ed Catmull (former president, Walt Disney Animation Studios):<\/em> One of my greatest memories was of an offsite for the film when everything clicked into place over several hours. There was no sense of ego, just of solving the story problems. You live for these kinds of moments.<\/p>\n

Del Vecho:<\/em> That was the day where Kristen [Anderson-Lopez] just said, “I have one word for you: Trolls.”<\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> Because the script was being written from the ground up and it was already cast, Jenn met with us numerous times to talk about our characters\u2014what we wanted from them, what we could bring. And it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had developing something, and maybe the only time I’ve ever truly developed something. I can’t believe they let me make Anna as weird as she was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Buck:<\/em> A lot of those characters are balanced because Jenn and I would talk so much, and obviously have different perspectives on them. Or I might have certain ideas on the women that might be somewhat cliche or stereotypical, and Jenn would always say, “We could do something a little better, a little more interesting.”<\/p>\n

Exciting as it was, a page-one rewrite also meant the creative team and cast were in a mad scramble to finish the movie\u2014which was scheduled to be released just 18 months after the screening that blew up<\/em> Frozen.<\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> I’m pretty sure we recorded that first movie completely, the first script that we scrapped. We spent a year and a half doing it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Fontana:<\/em> I never got a full script of Frozen<\/em>. I didn’t know the full story until I saw it for the first time.<\/p>\n

Gad:<\/em> I knew nothing about what the hell the movie was. I was coming in there and I was doing my sessions, but I wasn’t recording with Kristen or Idina and Jonathan.<\/p>\n

Groff:<\/em> As the actors, we were just like, who am I now? It was just constantly laying down different things.<\/p>\n

Gad:<\/em> There was this travelogue series, and they would get celebrities to go to different places. They sent me to New York, and I invited Bobby Lopez, who I’d worked on Book of Mormon<\/em> with, to go on a carriage ride with me in Central Park. So as the cameras were up, it was like, “How’s Frozen<\/em> going?” Because he was much more involved in the day-to-day than I was. He goes, “It’s kind of a mess.”<\/p>\n

Groff:<\/em> We could pop in and out. It was sort of like when parents don’t notice their children growing because they see them every day, but this was the opposite: You could see them all dying internally because of how hard it was.<\/p>\n

Menzel:<\/em> You come in, they’re like, we wrote this scene because you inspired us. And then I say, well, wait, is there still a big snow monster guy? And they’re like, well, we changed that. And because I’ve been involved in so many original musicals that take so many years to develop, I’m kind of comfortable in that process. You’ve got to just be patient and know when you’re around greatness. You just have to trust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bell:<\/em> I’m an eternal optimist. Doubts don’t serve me. I was just like, “Well, we’re going back in today. I’m going to fix something else.” I think that worrying is praying for something bad, and I’m not interested in wasting my time there. So I was very much just riding the wave.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> When you’re in development for a while, you’re like, “Come on, come on, come on, come on.” When you have that deadline, it seems the magic is that decisions get made.<\/p>\n

It helped that after the offsite trip, the movie would soon gain a new fulcrum: a ballad for Elsa called<\/em> \u201cLet It Go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson-Lopez:<\/em> We made an outline at this two-day retreat. One of the things on the outline just said \u201cElsa’s Badass Song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lopez:<\/em> Kristen was the one that came up with the title. She said to me, “I think the song should be called \u2018Let It Go,\u2019 because she’s letting go of her past and she’s letting go of her power.” I told her, “Don’t pitch it just yet, because I feel like maybe that’s on the nose,” and she went ahead and pitched it at this meeting anyway\u2014rightly. And everyone just sat up. I was like, I guess that’s the title.<\/p>\n

Menzel:<\/em> I think I was in New York City, in my apartment when I first heard the song, and I thought it was great. I remember feeling like it sounded sort of like an Avril Lavigne kind of song.<\/p>\n

Anderson-Lopez:<\/em> Idina\u2019s voice definitely informed our decisions to start in a very low place. When Idina sings really low, it’s really warm and intimate. But then as she gets higher and higher, it starts to get more and more epic, a superhero lifting off the ground.<\/p>\n

Menzel:<\/em> I’m playing a very young girl. I wanted to keep her sounding innocent. Put me a little lower, I sound like I can be singing in a lounge with a cigarette in my hand. And if you put me a little higher, I sound a little bit more innocent.<\/p>\n

So I asked them to take it up\u2014which, it was high already. I remember Kristen Lopez was like, \u201cthat would be great, but how are you going to sing that note at the end?\u201d And I said, \u201cwell, let’s just try it.\u201d And I was just feeling really good on that day vocally. So I nailed it, and everyone was really impressed. Cut to every city I sing that song in for the rest of my life: \u201coh my God, why did I put it in this key?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Catmull:<\/em> With any film, you hope for some song that expresses the most important emotions of the film, a song that powers the movie. When Kristen and Bobby wrote \u201cLet it Go,\u201d we knew we had that song. By the end, you really understood the problem and the driving emotion of the film. You can\u2019t always find something this good, but when you do, it is gold.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> As soon as we had \u201cLet It Go,\u201d we knew Elsa couldn’t be a villain. She was too sympathetic.<\/p>\n

Menzel:<\/em> I think it was a real defining moment for the character, and for the whole story, and for the sisters and their journey when we decided\u2014oh, this is someone we feel for.<\/p>\n

Groff:<\/em> \u201cLet It Go,\u201d it was very clear that that was going to be a fucking thing. I remember thinking, oh my God\u2014as a young gay child, this song would have been my anthem. I would’ve been in a gown at four years old, screaming \u201cLet It Go.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Elsa entered her final form, so did Anna<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> I think the thing with Anna that was really challenging was, I think too many times people think a character flaw means they have to have a personality disorder or something. And her flaw, it really… It took repeating over and over again to say, if we really want this ultimately to be about the power of true love, this has to be an analysis of what true love is. And so you have to have a character who wants love.<\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> When you walk past someone on the street who looks like a Disney princess, you know them by their posture, the way that their hands look a little bit like a dancer. There is a type. [She sits up straight.]<\/em> And then there’s my type. [She slumps.]<\/em> You know what I mean? I desperately wanted to see someone different. So I threw it all out the window and just tried to make Anna as playful and authentic as I felt I was trying to be when I was a kid.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> I think she’s a genius. What we talked about a lot is, in fairy tales, you need an optimist. But you didn’t want Anna to be goofy and not very bright. She\u2019s got a fun personality, but you wanted her to be really intelligent, very thoughtful. And Kristen was incredible as a partner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bell:<\/em> I’m not an improviser, but there were moments that showed themselves as I was recording. Like, Anna’s consistent, “wait, what?” is something I say daily, because I’m just talking so much that I get confused. And that became a signature phrase of hers.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> That even became one of our crew T-shirts.<\/p>\n

Del Vecho:<\/em> When they took a year out of the schedule, we printed T-shirts for the crew saying “Frozen<\/em>, 2013,” and on the back, it said, “Wait. What?”<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> For me now, if we’re a year out from the movie and we don’t know what it’s about, I would be like, this is not a good place to be. And it’s not a good place to be. It was just the process. Every time we got a scene we knew was right, it felt good. We were setting expectations that we are all familiar with, and then flipping them, but not from outside in\u2014it was from the characters out. It was organic as opposed to an agenda.<\/p>\n

But even once things were moving,<\/em> Frozen came down to the wire.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> The last thing that I recorded was the song with Santino [\u201cLove Is an Open Door\u201d]. I was eight months pregnant.<\/p>\n

Fontana:<\/em> I did a matinee as the prince in Cinderella<\/em> [on Broadway]. I flew to L.A., I recorded with Kristen, flew back that night, and did a show the next day. Kristen is a short lady\u2014a beautiful short lady\u2014so eight months pregnant on her is a thing. She was like, “My lungs have nowhere to go.”<\/p>\n

Bell:<\/em> I was 47 pounds heavier. My lungs were the size of a fireplace mouse.<\/p>\n

Anderson-Lopez:<\/em> The metaphor I’d like to say about animated musicals is that it’s building a very complicated IKEA shelf. You have to line things up, but leave things really loose, and it doesn’t look like a shelf. Sometimes it never looks like a shelf. But sometimes, at the very end, you get the screws just right, and it’s no longer lopsided in any direction. It definitely felt like we did the last screw right at the last minute before the movie opened.<\/p>\n

Lopez:<\/em> We solved the beginning last, which is a very common thing, developing an original show.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Del Vecho:<\/em> The first version [of \u201cDo You Want to Build a Snowman?\u201d] was sad the whole time.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> It was a very sad song. And I know I was like, “We can’t open the movie like this. We have to have some joy.”<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> Then we killed the parents just to make sure we had some pain.<\/p>\n

Buck:<\/em> It’s Disney, after all.<\/p>\n

Lee:<\/em> Ed Catmull would always watch the screening and he’d go, “You haven’t earned it yet. You haven’t earned it yet.” And then the last screening we showed him, he came walking up and I’m like, ugh. And he’s like, “You’ve earned it.”<\/p>\n

The team had created a full-fledged, classic-Disney-style musical, centered on two female protagonists who learn that true love isn\u2019t romantic\u2014it\u2019s the indelible bond between sisters. But you wouldn\u2019t know that from the film\u2019s trailers, which sold<\/em> Frozen as an adventure comedy and hardly featured Elsa at all.<\/em><\/p>\n