Josh Gad Was Outsmarted By His Five-Year-Old Kid

Though he's known for voicing the youthful snowman Olaf in 2013's Frozen, Josh Gad is tackling a different, new animated character, Chuck, in the Angry Birds movie. Chuck is a bird who "literally speaks faster than he thinks and moves faster than he speaks," Gad says. "There was something about that, a guy who speaks in stream of consciousness, and who's anger is defined by his speed, that was really fun."

All the characters in the film — voiced by comedic powerhouses like Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, and Kate McKinnon — are dealing with their own anger issues in the film. So in staying true to the theme of the movie, I ask Gad to think back to a time when he was really angry — not just mildly uncomfortable, but livid. He rattles his brain for an answer.

"Ooh, I know what it is," he says after a moment. "I have two daughters, one is five and one is two, and they're both much brighter than me, because girls are smarter than boys, and I didn't realize how much so until I had two girls. So my daughter literally did something I saw her do, and then she lied to me about it, and she was relentless in her lie," he says.

He gets more heated as his story continues: "She kept doubling down on the lie, to the point where I felt like I was starting to go out of my mind. I was like 'Dammnit, why is she using me against myself?!' She terrorized my brain. At the end of the day, I had to concede that I must have been wrong about this. It made me so angry. She was so in the lie, and a jury of her peers would believe her."

So how can a parent turn a relentless five-year-old's fib into a teachable moment? According to Gad, it's harder than you think. "I defused my anger and I sat down with her. I said to her, 'I'm OK with what you did, you just need to tell me the truth about it.' She didn't tell me," he says, bursting out laughing. "The next morning she looked at me she said, 'Daddy, I did it. And I'm sorry. And I won't do it again.' So it was a great lesson but the close to 24 hours that it took to get there was... I had time to meditate."

Sounds like Gad has a bit of Chuck in him after all — the anger part, not the fast-talking part — or else I would be dealing with my own anger attempting to transcribe this interview.

The Angry Birds movie hits theaters May 20.