As an actor, Jonathan Groff has led something of a double life. Netflix viewers may know him as the star of David Fincher's "Mindhunter," where he played an FBI behavioral scientist interviewing serial killers like Charles Manson. In "The Matrix Resurrections," Groff took over from Hugo Weaving as the villainous Agent Smith, earning himself the nickname "The Savage" on the set because he "would just go so hard" during his stunt training. Then, there's the new M. Night Shyamalan thriller, "Knock at the Cabin," where Groff plays the victim of an apocalyptic home invasion in the proverbial cabin in the woods.
Yet despite memorable horror and action credits like these, Groff remains a true chameleon who isn't easily pigeonholed. He's also a Tony Award-nominated stage actor, who has appeared in "Hamilton" on Broadway and further showed off his singing skills by guest-starring on "Glee." In Disney's "Frozen" and "Frozen II" — two of the highest-grossing films of all time — Groff famously voiced the animated iceman Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. And while it could get tiresome performing the song "Lost in the Woods" on cue (on the set of a cabin-in-the-woods movie, no less), it sounds like Groff is a good sport about that. In a new interview with The Wrap, his "Knock at the Cabin" costar Ben Aldridge said:
"I am astounded at how up Jonathan Groff is for singing that when people request it. And that's not because it's indulgent or any way or anything like that. It's because like he wants to, he knows people. It makes people so happy. And so like he has a bit that he does that Kristen [Cui] would get him to do, and that I've gotten him to do for friends of mine. And yeah, he's still giving people the 'Frozen' love."
Reindeer Moral Support
The beauty of "Lost in the Woods" (which I'd highly encourage the reader to sing along with via the above video), is that it requires Jonathan Groff to sing a duet with himself, half of it in a reindeer voice. I particularly enjoy how Kristoff does that whole recitative thing that they do in musicals, where he's sort of half-speaking, half-singing the immortal line, "Reindeers are better than people. Sven, why is love so hard?"
Not to be outdone, the reindeer Sven gives Kristoff moral support, assuring him that his feelings are real and he needs to let down his guard. This is perfect reindeer advice, applicable not just to an iceman's broken-hearted '80s-style fantasy ballad, but to the very specter of the apocalypse. If nothing else, you can't fault Groff for wanting to please his 8-year-old "Knock at the Cabin" co-star, Kristen Cui. Lord knows they probably needed something to lighten the mood on the set of a tense thriller that involves Groff's character, his husband, and their young daughter being taken hostage by four armed strangers, who demand that one of them be sacrificed to avert (you guessed it) the apocalypse.
It's heavy subject matter, which is further complicated by the natural disasters that play out on TV (in both the movies and the real world). If you ask me, we could all use a little Reindeer Jonathan Groff support in our lives.
"Knock at the Cabin" is in theaters now.
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The post Jonathan Groff Sang His Frozen 2 Song on the Knock at the Cabin Set Because Of Course He Did appeared first on /Film.