Nick Jonas revealed on the Tuesday, Aug. 18 episode of the Hey Jonas! podcast that he once auditioned for the role of Kristoff in Frozen, a part that ultimately went to Jonathan Groff. Speaking with Frozen stars Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad, who joined him on the podcast, Jonas admitted the audition did not go as planned.
According to Jonas, he arrived without knowing what song he would perform and without sheet music in hand. He tried to recover by asking the casting team to play a musical theater song, picking one on the spot. Looking back, Jonas didn't mince words, calling the performance "terrible" and admitting he "bombed the audition."
Bell offered a blunt assessment of the story: "That must have been why you didn't get it." Gad, however, gave Jonas a bit of comic support, joking that he had "such better chemistry with Kristen than Groff," which drew laughs from the group.
Jonas still made a case for the road not taken. "I love Jonathan Groff," he said, before adding jokingly that it would have been "better to cast me."
The what-if is notable given Frozen's scale as a phenomenon. The film's soundtrack spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and "Let It Go," performed by Menzel, peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014.
While Jonas didn't land a spot in Arendelle, his Disney story has still worked out. He and his brothers, Joe and Kevin, were recently named Disney Legends, the Walt Disney Company's highest honor, recognizing the group's impact through their music and entertainment work. The recognition comes as the Jonas Brothers return to Camp Rock 3, reprising their roles as Connect 3 in a franchise that helped establish them as Disney stars nearly two decades ago.
Photo: Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
