Josh Gad

I've got to stand up, can't just clam up.

Cause there's a time in your life when you know you've got to man up.

I've never thought about that until now.

Yeah, it's definitely, well, it's got a very 80s quality to it.

I remember from the very first workshop that song existed.

And actually, the very first workshop we did, Trey, Matt, and Bobby had not written any of Act Two.

So the show just literally ended with Man Up, but it wasn't an ensemble.

It was just me.

And it ended with me basically being like, Man Up!

And that was it.

And then we went to black.

And so, you know, it evolved into what it evolved into.

But...

You know, the influences of each of these songs, including Man Up, comes from a place of absolute weird devotion to musical theater on the part of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Obviously, Bobby Lopez comes from that world.

But when you look at Trey and Matt, the first thing you think of is not necessarily, like, musical theater acumen.

And these are two guys that people forget...

when they wrote South Park Bigger Longer Uncut, the feature film adaptation of the Comedy Central show, they got a letter from Stephen Sondheim, who's probably the most acclaimed composer and lyricist of the 20th century.

And he basically said, this is one of the top 10 most brilliantly written

realized musicals he's ever seen.