Olaf (Frozen)
Olaf is a fictional character from Disney's Frozen franchise. Olaf is first presented in the Walt Disney Animation Studios animated film Frozen (2013), introduced as an inanimate snowman created by Elsa and Anna in their childhood. He then reappears in the film as a living snowman created by Elsa's ice powers, and helps Anna and Kristoff in their journey to find Elsa. He later appears in other related Frozen media, including the sequel Frozen II (2019), and serves as the central character in the featurette Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017), the short film Once Upon a Snowman (2020), and the series of shorts Olaf Presents (2021). He is voiced by Josh Gad in most of his appearances.
This article is about the Frozen character. For other uses, see Olaf (disambiguation).Olaf
Frozen (2013)
Josh Gad
Jake Green (Disney Dreamlight Valley and Disney Speedstorm)
Male
Elsa (creator)
Kingdom of Arendelle
Development[edit]
Origins and concept[edit]
The Disney studio made their first attempts to adapt Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale, "The Snow Queen", as early as 1943, when Walt Disney considered the possibility of producing a biography film of the author.[1] However, the story and the characters proved to be too symbolic[2][3] and posed unsolvable problems to Disney and his animators. Later on, other Disney executives had made efforts to translate this material to the big screen, however these proposals were all shelved due to similar issues.[1]
In 2008, Chris Buck pitched Disney his version of the story[4] called Anna and the Snow Queen, which was planned to be traditionally animated.[5] This version was "completely different" from Frozen; it had a storyline that stuck much closer to the original material and featured an entirely different Olaf character, the role more resembling Marshmallow's.[6] However, by early 2010, the project was scrapped again.[5][7] On December 22, 2011, Disney announced a new title for the film, Frozen, which would be released on November 27, 2013, and a different crew from the previous attempt.[8] The new script, which employed "the same concept but was completely rewritten",[5] finally solved the long-term problem with Andersen's story by depicting Anna and Elsa as sisters.[9]
Voice[edit]
Josh Gad, a Tony-nominated actor best known for his performance as Elder Cunningham in Broadway's The Book of Mormon (which was co-written by the Frozen's co-songwriter Robert Lopez),[10] was cast to voice Olaf.[11][12][13] Gad later expressed that getting a part in a Disney film was "kind of a dream come true" for him, as he had always been a fan of Disney films in general and their animated productions in particular.[14] "I grew up during the second golden age of Disney animation, when every movie that came out was an event – The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King," he said.[10] Impressed by the performances of comedic relief sidekicks such as Timon and Pumbaa in The Lion King, or the Genie in Aladdin, Gad set the goal to play characters of this type since his early age: "I remember [...] saying, "I want to do that one day. I really want to do that,"" he recalled.[10][14][15] Gad based his performance on his The Book of Mormon co-star Rory O'Malley.[16]
Design and characterization[edit]
As a snowman Anna and Elsa built together as kids, Olaf represents innocent love and the joy the sisters once had when they were young before being split. He is not just funny, he also has a "big role to play representing the innocent love in the scale of fear versus love."[17] It was not until he meant something to the girls that he resonated with us,"[18] "Olaf couldn't just be thrown in, he had to have a purpose" and that one of his purposes was to be the embodiment of the sisterly relationship that had gone cold.[19] "When Anna and Elsa were very little, and before Elsa's powers accidentally hurt Anna, they played. They'd sneak away and play with her powers. And you see them roll the snowman. He's not magical. He doesn't come to life. But they name him Olaf and he likes warm hugs." "It inspires the look. And so when Elsa is singing "Let It Go" obviously the first thing she goes to is the last moment she was happy. And it was that moment. And so he's imbued with that. He's innocent love." The continuous themes that can be seen throughout the movie revolve around the power of love and fear. Olaf, on one end of that spectrum, represents the most innocent kind form of love. It is possible that he resembles some of the characteristics of Anna's younger self. This provides a connection between the sisters' happy past and their ability to remember that love in difficult times. Overall his character provides much of the comic relief found in the film, while conveying lovable innocence and purity. "And so he was just a lot of fun, and emotionally he'll bring a lot that we weren't able to show you yet, too. So he's funny in the kids-state-the-obvious kind of way." (Lee) "And he can say very poignant things too." (Buck)[2]
In very early versions of the film, Olaf was originally written as one of the guards at Elsa's castle when the concept of Elsa controlling a legion of menacing snowmen was still in the story.[19][20] Buck talked on this scrapped character setting, "We always talked about she was trying to learn about her powers. So we talked about it like it's the first pancake. You know that pancakes get burned on the bottom that you throw out. Well, that's Olaf. Olaf was her first pancake."[20] In order to keep the character from getting too complex, the directors wanted him to have a childlike innocence.[19] According to Lee, "When you're a child the awkwardness and the funny shapes you make with the snowmen, the heads are never perfect" and that's how they came up with the ideas when thinking what kids would think of a snowman.[19][20]
Gad also made plenty of improvements for Olaf during the recording sessions. But the directors were very careful not to risk the character taking over the story.[19] "Olaf was very much a sketch until we had Josh Gad, and then we would just get in the room and play and we'd have a lot of fun and that's really how we found his voice specifically and how he looks at the world. It really was working with Josh that did that."[21] "It was a lot funnier than I expected, thanks largely to Josh Gad's surprisingly well-written deluded snowman character" (Del Vecho).[22] Gad's studio performance was videotaped, and animators used his facial expressions and physical moves as a reference for animating the character.[18]
Hyrum Osmond, one of the film's animation supervisors, served as the character lead for Olaf.[22] Del Vecho described him as "quiet but he has a funny, wacky personality so we knew he'd bring a lot of comedy to it."[22] Osmond himself admitted that "My personality's a bit like Olaf."[18]
The filmmakers developed a new software called Spaces to aid artists in deconstructing Olaf and rebuilding him as part of the animation process.[23][24] "It was kind of an animator's dream," Osmond enthused. "You have a character that can come apart. We said to the animation crew, 'Just have fun with it.'" "The fun part of Olaf, we learned early on that his body parts can fall apart and we knew that we would want to take full advantage of that. You will see quite a bit more of that in the movie in a surprising way." (Chris Buck).[21] "Olaf has become his own sort of standout comic character and the animators are having fun animating him. There's a lot of squash in there – I mean, a lot – and he's the only character we can throw off a cliff and have him come apart on the way down, still survive and be happy. We have the contrast of Olaf being a Snowman but loving the idea of Summer" (Del Vecho)[22]
Reception[edit]
David Crow of Den of Geek described Olaf as a "cute little sidekick" and felt that the character was loaded with "earnest sincerity".[51] While finding fault with the other leading characters, Scott Foundas writing for Variety found Olaf to be the only "unimpeachable" character and thought that he deserved a spin off feature.[52] In an IGN review of the film, Chris Carle described Josh Gad's performance as "consistently hilarious" and praised his "perfectly timed" voice work and Olaf's "show-stopping" song.[53] Christy Lemire writing for RogerEbert.com found Josh Gad's Olaf to be "lovably goofy".[54] Matt Singer of ScreenCrush initially hated Olaf but years later admitted to gaining an appreciation for the character, particularly the innocence of Josh Gad's vocals and the physical comedy involving Olaf's disconnected body parts.[55]