Nick Jonas Admits He Bombed His ‘Frozen’ Audition

Nick Jonas has performed on Broadway, sold millions of records and spent years on stages around the world. But even someone with that much experience can have a seriously awkward audition.

During the latest episode of the Jonas Brothers’, Hey Jonas!, Nick opened up about a surprising career moment involving Disney’s Frozen. The brothers recorded the episode from their trailer at D23, where they were joined by Frozen stars Kristen Bell, Josh Gad and Idina Menzel.

As the Frozen stars joined the podcast, Nick suddenly remembered a story he had not planned on sharing. It involved an audition for one of the movie’s biggest characters, Kristoff, and according to Nick, things did not exactly go according to plan.

Nick explained that he auditioned for the role of Kristoff, who eventually became the love interest of Kristen Bell’s Anna. The problem was that he apparently arrived without knowing what he was supposed to sing.

“I auditioned for Frozen. I went in for Kristoff,” Nick revealed. “I went in, and they said, ‘Okay, what are you going to be singing today?’ I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ They said, ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ They’re like, ‘Do you have your sheet music?’ And I said, ‘No, no one told me I had… Okay, lets’…’ And so I just said, ‘Can you play something from…’ I don’t know what I said, some musical theater song.”

That is about as rough as an audition can get. Imagine walking into a room hoping to land a major movie role, only to realize you were supposed to bring your own music. Nick did not exactly get off to a magical start.

“And I bombed the audition. It was terrible,” he added.

Kristen Bell did not let him off the hook.

“That must have been why you didn’t get it,” she said.

Fair enough. Nick was already admitting that the audition went badly, so Bell’s response was basically the entertainment industry version of, “Well, there’s your answer.”

Josh Gad, who voices Olaf in Frozen, had a much more complimentary take on what could have happened.

“Look, I’ll say it here. You would have such better chemistry with Kristen than [Jonathan] Groff. It would be so much better,” Josh joked.

That might make Nick feel a little better about the whole situation. While he did not get the role of Kristoff, he certainly had the performing background to make the character believable.

Nick was a Broadway replacement for J Pierrepont Finch in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 2012. Jonathan Groff, who ultimately played Kristoff in Frozen, also took on the role of Finch in a West End concert performance of the musical in 2015.

So, in a funny twist, both Nick and Groff have played the same Broadway character, while Groff went on to become the voice of Kristoff.

Nick may have missed his chance to sing alongside Anna in Frozen, but his failed audition has now become a pretty entertaining story of its own. Sometimes a career mistake does not disappear. It just becomes a funny story you can tell years later, preferably while sitting next to the people who got the job you wanted.