ABCStarring H.E.R. as Belle and Josh Groban as The Beast, ABC’s upcoming live-action Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration honors the beloved children’s classic by pairing the original film with a live musical on air. Tony Award-nominated actor and musician Joshua Henry couldn’t have been more excited to discuss the project and his role as Gaston, which he got after Alan Menken — the composer of the original film, as well as many other Disney classics — saw him play Rapunzel’s Prince in the ongoing Broadway production of Into the Woods.
“I’m glad to play Gaston, because he’s what happens when you get overly obsessed with how you look and what you can do, and think that is all that there is to make you successful, which is not unlike our social media culture. You blind yourself from real beauty. I think that’s what happened with Gaston. It’s a status thing for him. He doesn’t know what it means to actually connect on more than a physical level, and it just ruins his world,” Henry explained. “It’s cool to be a part of a story that breaks that down. It’s about trying to see people for who they are. That’s how you get the real beauty.”
Asked how he feels playing such an iconic character, especially one generally seen as a villain, Henry said, “I’ll be honest with you, I love it. I’ve played Aaron Burr in Hamilton, I played Billy Bigelow in Carousel — characters that are typically seen as ‘the bad guy.’ The challenge and the juicy part about that is you get to really see how much not the bad guy you can be. How did this person get to be that way? And are there moments when you can really show that this person is not always like that? What are the redeeming qualities that Gaston has? We all live somewhere in between good and evil; we have the capability to be either/or at different moments,” he continued.
So how does one prepare for such a production? “Well,” Henry explained, “what you do is you practice like crazy. Right now, we are in rehearsal hour after hour, for days on end.” Asked if he eats five dozen eggs for breakfast like the original Gaston, he answered, “No, but I’m up to half a dozen eggs. You want to try and really inhabit the character you’re playing. I’m putting on a little extra poundage.”
This live event, premiering Thursday, Dec. 15, at 8pm ET/PT on ABC, also stars Shania Twain as Mrs. Potts and Martin Short as the charismatic candelabra, Lumiere. It will be available to stream on Disney+ the following day.
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