Josh Gad has revealed that plans to kill off his character in the second Frozen movie were put on ice when it proved to be too much for younger viewers.

The former Book Of Mormon star voices the snowman Olaf in both Frozen films, the second of which initially featured a sequence in which the character began “to flurry away”, before being reduced to nothing.

In fact, in his new memoir In Gad We Trust, the actor revealed that he even went as far as recording the scene, which proved to be emotional for everyone involved.

“[Jennifer Lee, Frozen’s director] and I started recording the dialogue and I couldn’t get through it without sobbing,” he admitted (via Entertainment Weekly).

“Those first recordings were brutal, and I remember feeling that we were doing something that was going to pack a serious punch.”

And test audiences were similarly moved to tears.

“One of the major issues was that Olaf’s death scene was causing absolute havoc with the younger viewers,” Josh wrote.

“They were apparently sobbing, screaming, and fully traumatised by the extended sequence and the tone of the scene.”

Apparently, making matters even worse was the fact that, in the original scene, Olaf himself “was scared and confused by what was happening”.

“In its commitment to the brutality of Olaf’s naïveté about all things, including dying, we had made our intended audience scared for Olaf, rather than emotional,” he recalled.

He concluded with a line from Disney’s CEO Bob Iger, who reportedly told the creative team: “Olaf is a child. You can’t just willy-nilly kill a scared child, because the children watching will see themselves in him.”

While Olaf has proved to be a break-out star of the Frozen franchise – even landing various on-screen spin-offs like At Home With Olaf, Olaf Presents and Olaf’s Frozen Adventure – Josh has also revealed that the character was almost axed completely before Frozen was released.

“I almost found out recently from Jennifer Lee that the character was almost cut from the film,” he told Entertainment Tonight.

Josh is currently primed to reprise the role of Olaf in two additional Frozen sequels, following Bob Iger’s announcement in 2023 that Disney will be “leaning into our unrivalled brands and franchises” in the near future, rather than focussing on creating new stories.

Sequels to Toy Story and Zootopia are also in the pipeline, with Moana 2 currently still in cinemas.