VIDEO: Josh Gad Responds to Controversy Over BEAUTY AND THE BEAST's 'Gay Moment'

In a new interview with PEOPLE, actor and Broadway alum Josh Gad, who portrays LeFou in Disney's new live-action BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, responds to the recent controversy surrounding the revelation that his character has a crush on the film's handsome and egotistical villain Gaston. Just days after director Bill Condon announced the movie's 'gay moment', a theater in Alabama said they would no longer show the film.

"There is so much fear out there of that which we don't understand, that which we don't know," Gad told People, adding the irony that people are reacting to the film before seeing in, when one of its central themes is "never to judge a book by its cover." Watch the interview below.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST hits theaters on March 17th. Directed by Oscar winner Bill Condon based on the 1991 animated film, "Beauty and the Beast" is produced by Mandeville Films' David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, with eight-time Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken, who won two Academy Awards® (Best Original Score and Best Song) for the 1991 animated film, providing the score, which will include new recordings of the original songs written by Menken and Howard Ashman, as well as several new songs written by Menken and three-time Oscar winnerTim Rice.

Source: PEOPLE