Early life and education
Gad was born in Hollywood, Florida, to a Jewish family with roots across three continents. His father, Sam (Shmuel) Gad, was born in Afghanistan to a Jewish family and later relocated to Israel before emigrating to the United States. His mother, Susan, was born in Germany to an Ashkenazi Jewish family of Holocaust survivors.1 Gad was raised Jewish and describes himself as spiritual but not religiously observant.
He attended the University School of Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, graduating in 1999.1 During his high school years he competed at the national level in speech and debate, winning the National Forensics League National Tournament championship in Original Oratory in both 1998 and 1999, and in Humorous Interpretation in 1999.1
Gad enrolled at the Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he studied drama alongside future Broadway stars Leslie Odom Jr. and Rory O'Malley. He also completed a semester at the National Institute of Dramatic Art during his studies. He graduated with a BFA in drama in 2003.
Career
Stage (2003-2024)
Gad's first major Broadway credit came in 2005, when he replaced Dan Fogler in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Circle in the Square Theatre. The role announced him as a comedic stage talent capable of anchoring a large-cast musical.
His career-defining stage work arrived with The Book of Mormon, the Trey Parker and Matt Stone musical that opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011.1 Gad co-originated the role of Elder Cunningham alongside Andrew Rannells, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 2012 (shared with the full company).3 He played the role until June 6, 2012.
More than a decade later he returned to Broadway with Rannells in Gutenberg! The Musical! (2023-2024) at the James Earl Jones Theatre. The two-man show earned Gad a Drama League Award nomination for Distinguished Performance (2024).4 He also played King Herod in a Hollywood Bowl production of Jesus Christ Superstar in July 2025.
Film (2008-present)
Gad made his feature debut in 21 (2008), followed by a leading comedic turn in The Rocker (2008). He played Steve Wozniak in the biographical drama Jobs (2013) and appeared in The Internship (2013) with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
His highest-profile live-action film role is LeFou in Disney's live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (2017), alongside Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. He also appeared in Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express (2017) as Hector MacQueen, and in Marshall (2017).
As a voice actor in animation, Gad voiced Chuck in The Angry Birds Movie (2016) and Bailey across A Dog's Purpose (2017) and A Dog's Journey (2019). He voiced Olaf the snowman in Disney's Frozen (2013), winning an Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Feature in 2014.5 He reprised the character in Frozen 2 (2019), winning a second Annie Award,6 and in the video game Kingdom Hearts III (2019). He has voiced Olaf in numerous short films and specials, including Frozen Fever (2015), Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017), Once Upon a Snowman (2020), and the Olaf Presents mini-series (2021). Frozen 3 is scheduled for 2027. He has a voice cameo in Zootopia 2 (2025).
He appeared in Artemis Fowl (Disney+, 2020) and the Hulu horror-comedy Little Monsters (2019). He also has a guest role in the Amazon Prime series The Boys (2022) and starred in Wolf Like Me (2022-2023). Upcoming projects include Shrunk (a legacy sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), Spaceballs: The New One (2027, which he also co-writes and produces), Oh, the Places You'll Go! (2028), and a directorial debut with a Chris Farley biopic starring Paul Walter Hauser. He appeared in the Marvel series Wonder Man in 2026.
Television (2007-present)
Gad's first major television role was Ryan Church, news director on the Fox sitcom Back to You (2007-2008), starring alongside Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. He was a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from May 2009 to June 2011, contributing recurring segments including "The War on Christmas."
He co-created and starred in the NBC sitcom 1600 Penn (2012), playing Skip Gilchrist, the eldest son of a fictional U.S. president. The show ran for one season. He appeared in the Spike comedy Woke Up Dead (2009) and the FX series The Comedians (2015).
More recently, he starred in the HBO sci-fi comedy Avenue 5 (2020-2022), playing billionaire space tourism company owner Herman Judd. He created, produced, and starred in the Apple TV+ animated musical series Central Park (2020-2022), voicing Owen Tillerman. During the COVID-19 pandemic he created and hosted Reunited Apart, a YouTube series in which he assembled casts of beloved films, including Back to the Future and The Lord of the Rings, for virtual reunions. In 2025 he published the memoir In Gad We Trust.
In 2022 the Walt Disney Company named Gad a Disney Legend, recognizing his contributions to the Disney Frozen franchise.7
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
In Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) Gad provided the voice for Muncher, a large gluttonous ghost who devours metal objects and is drawn to the infrastructure of Summerville, Oklahoma. The character is captured by Phoebe Spengler and Podcast early in the film and held in the Ecto-1.
Gad came to the role through a serendipitous encounter: he bumped into director Jason Reitman on the Sony lot and Reitman spontaneously asked whether he would like to come and voice a ghost in the film.2 The casting is documented in James Greene Jr.'s franchise history A Convenient Parallel Dimension (2022).8
