The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney Animated Classic

Idina Kim Menzel (née Mentzel; born May 30, 1971) is an American actress and singer. Particularly known for her work in musicals on the Broadway stage and having achieved mainstream success across stage, film and music, Menzel has garnered the honorific title "Queen of Broadway" for her achievements. Her accolades include an American Music Award, a Billboard Music Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for three Drama League Awards and four Drama Desk Awards. In 2019, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to live theatre. Menzel rose to prominence as a stage actress in 1996, making her Broadway debut playing Maureen Johnson in the rock musical Rent, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. After appearing in several smaller-scale stage and Off-Broadway productions, in 2003 Menzel originated the role of Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The popularity of the musical, Menzel's character and song "Defying Gravity" earned her a devoted following among theater fans. After leaving the show in 2005, she reprised the role in the musical's original West End production until the end of 2006, becoming the highest-paid actress in West End theatre history. In 2014, Menzel returned to Broadway as Elizabeth Vaughan in the musical If/Then, for which she received a third Tony Award nomination. Menzel began transitioning to film and television roles in the early 2000s. After reprising her role as Maureen in Rent's 2005 film adaptation, she was cast as Nancy Tremaine in Disney's musical fantasy film Enchanted (2007) and reprised her role in its sequel Disenchanted (2022). She had a recurring role as Shelby Corcoran on the musical television series Glee (2010–2013). Since 2013, Menzel has voiced Elsa in Disney's animated Frozen franchise. "Let It Go", a song she recorded for the first film, became widely popular upon release, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song and reaching number five on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first Tony Award-winning actor to have a top-10 song on the chart. Menzel also starred in the crime drama film Uncut Gems (2019) and in the jukebox musical film Cinderella (2021). As a recording artist, Menzel has released six studio albums: Still I Can't Be Still (1998), Here (2004), I Stand (2008), Holiday Wishes (2014), idina. (2016), and Christmas: A Season of Love (2019).

Kristen Bell (born July 18, 1980) is an American actress and voice actress. In 2001, she made her Broadway debut. After moving to Los Angeles, she landed various television guest appearances and small film parts, but she gained fame as the title character on Veronica Mars. Besides her tv and movie roles, she provided the voice and face of Lucy Stillman in the Assassin's Creed video game series.

Jennifer Michelle Lee (born October 22, 1971) is an American screenwriter, film director, and chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios. She is best known as the writer and director of Frozen (2013) and its sequel Frozen II (2019), the former of which earned her an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Lee is the first female director of a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film and the first female director of a feature film that earned more than $1 billion in gross box office revenue. She has won one Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Annie Award, and has been nominated for one BAFTA Award and two Annie Awards.

Joshua Gad (born February 23, 1981) is an American film, television and stage actor who was in the short-lived television series Back to You in the role of Ryan Church. The show premiered in September 2007 co-starring Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer. Gad has also appeared in episodes of ER and Numb3rs. His film appearances include The Rocker, Crossing Over, 21, and Razortooth. He appeared on Broadway in the role of William Barfeé in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and as Elder Cunningham in The Book of Mormon. Description above from the Wikipedia article Josh Gad, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now now known as The Walt Disney Company and has annual revenues of approximately USD $35 billion. Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won twenty-two Academy Awards from a total of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history.[citation needed] Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong. The year after his December 15, 1966 death from lung cancer in Burbank, California, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971. Description above from the Wikipedia article Walt Disney, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Chris Buck is a film director known for directing Tarzan and Surf's Up. He also worked as supervising animator on Home on the Range and Chicken Little. Buck's other credits at Disney include the 1995 animated feature Pocahontas, where he oversaw the animation of three central characters: Percy, Grandmother Willow and Wiggins. Buck also helped design characters for the 1989 animated blockbuster The Little Mermaid, performed experimental animation for The Rescuers Down Under and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and was an animator on The Fox and the Hound. Buck helped develop several films at Hyperion Pictures and served as a directing animator on the feature Bebe's Kids. He storyboarded director Tim Burton's live-action featurette Frankenweenie and worked with Burton again as directing animator on the Brad Bird-directed "Family Dog" episode of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories and as director of the subsequent primetime animated series. Buck's credits include a number of animated commercials (including some with the Keebler Elves) for such Los Angeles-based production entities as FilmFair, Kurtz & Friends, and Duck Soup. A native of Wichita, Kansas, Buck studied character animation for two years at CalArts, where he also taught from 1988–1993.

Jonathan Drew Groff (born March 26, 1985) is an American actor and singer. He began his career on Broadway, rising to prominence for his portrayal of Melchior Gabor in the original production of Spring Awakening (2006-2008), for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, becoming one of the youngest nominees for the award, at age 21. He returned to Broadway to portray King George III in the original production of Hamilton (2015), for which he earned a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. For the original cast album of Hamilton, he, along with the other singers on the recording, won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Branching out into film and television roles, Groff made his film debut in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock (2009), and became a recurring guest star in the Fox musical-comedy series Glee (2009–2015) as Jesse St. James. He voiced the roles of Kristoff and Sven in Disney's Frozen franchise, including Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019), two of the highest-grossing films of all time, as well as the short films Frozen Fever (2015) and Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017). Groff starred as Patrick Murray in the HBO comedy-drama series Looking (2014–2015), the network's first TV series centering around the lives of gay men, as well as its subsequent television film, Looking: The Movie (2016), and portrayed FBI Special Agent Holden Ford in the Netflix period crime drama Mindhunter (2017–2019), produced by David Fincher, for which he won a Satellite Award. In 2021, he received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Anthology Series or Movie for his performance in the Disney+ live stage recording of Hamilton. Groff starred in the fourth installment of the Matrix franchise—The Matrix Resurrections (2021)—as Smith, replacing Hugo Weaving from the original trilogy. In 2022, he executive produced the HBO documentary film Spring Awakening: Those You've Known, which saw the 15 year reunion of the original cast of the musical, and voiced the lead role of Ollie in the Netflix series Lost Ollie. He stars in M. Night Shyamalan's apocalyptic horror film Knock at the Cabin (2023) and will return to Broadway in fall 2023 in the first revival of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez is an American songwriter. She is best known for co-writing songs for the animated film Frozen (2013) with her husband Robert Lopez. Lopez won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Let It Go" from Frozen and "Remember Me" from Coco (2017) at the 86th Academy Awards and 90th Academy Awards. She also won two Grammy Awards at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.

Donald Lee Hall is an American film director, voice actor and writer at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is known for co-directing Winnie the Pooh, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Raya and the Last Dragon. Big Hero 6 won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2015.

John Alan Lasseter is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, voice actor, and the head of animation at Skydance Animation. He was previously the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering. Lasseter's first job was with The Walt Disney Company, where he became an animator. Next, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. After Lucasfilm became Pixar in 1986, Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer and he directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, "Toy Story 3" and "Cars 2". He has won two Academy Awards, for Animated Short Film (Tin Toy), as well as a Special Achievement Award (Toy Story).

Peter Del Vecho (born April 6, 1958) is an American film producer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, where he is also senior vice president of production. He is best known for producing Frozen and Frozen II together with directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee; the former won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Del Vecho grew up in the city of Quincy, in the South Shore area just outside Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston University College of Fine Arts, where he studied theater production, and worked in theatre for many years. After working at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for about 7 years, he was recruited by Disney Animation. He started out in production management and transitioned into producing.