Quotes from Josh Gad

Melissa McCarthy just opened this new movie, 'Identity Thief,' and Rex Reed, who's a known critic, wrote a scathing commentary on her weight. I think that weight designation is one of the last frontiers of bullying. I don't know what the right 'ism' for it is, but I think that there's a level of that that's happening that's certainly not okay.

I was trained as a straight dramatist.

I love polarizing people.

I feel like Jim Carrey is probably the closest thing to a true physical comedian that we have working today.

Acting comes natural to me. What I do enjoy is meeting people that I've idolized for years. I mean, I was talking about bringing up a child with Edie Falco yesterday.

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

I was like a Borscht Belt comedian trapped in the body of a 6-year-old. I was channeling Jackie Mason at 7.

The actual truth about Gad is it's one of the original 13 tribes of Israel, so you can actually trace my lineage back to, like, those guys who had, like, a hand in the Bible and have since become very famous from that. So I come from very famous lineage. Granted, they didn't have cameras back then, so none of them had TV shows.

There are certain TV shows that probably would have made me rich, and there are certain commitments I could have made that probably would have raised a lot of eyebrows that I didn't. But I don't look back at those decisions and say, 'Oh God, I'm such an idiot.'

Coming off of 'Book of Mormon,' I had a lot of opportunities. I didn't want to do TV, actually. I really wanted to get paid nothing and keep doing theater at all costs.

It's funny because 'The Book of Mormon' is 'The Book of Mormon' now. When I was doing it at the very beginning, and I was a part of it for four years and always believed in it, I never really knew if it was going to be more than a convention for 'South Park' fans.

I'm unfortunately very verbose too often.

I think physical comedy is an amazing asset because it tells a story that's more universal than just language and dialogue. I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. They're very powerful figures in my life.

Josh [Gad] does such an amazing job playing a lovable idiot. Not many people can do that, as convincingly as he can.

When I left college, I was out of work for three years. I had this dream of being on 'SNL,' and that was all I could imagine.

One of my top 10 favorite movies of all time was South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Team America is a work of genius to me.