Josh Gad calls this spring break comedy the ‘worst film I have made’

Josh Gad gives fans a play-by-play of his highs, lows, and lower-than-lows in his new memoir, In Gad We Trust. And nothing was lower than a certain troubled spring break comedy.

After his wedding to the actress Ida Darvish in 2008, Gad “got back to work” due to the demands of a “two-picture deal I had with Sony,” he writes in the Jan. 14 release. He had just come off the critical and commercial success of Love & Other Drugs and was ready for a victory lap.

The resulting film was not exactly what he hoped for; Gad calls Mardi Gras: Spring Break “the single worst movie I have made — and will hopefully ever make — in my life.”

Mardi Gras: Spring Break is a typical post-American Pie frat-boy comedy. College buddies Mike (Nicholas D’Agosto), Scottie (Bret Harrison), and Bump (Gad) decide to venture to New Orleans for Mardi Gras for some lewd fun. As Gad’s character puts it, “I wanna make Mardi Gras my b—-!”

One problem: Mike’s girlfriend Erica (Danneel Ackles) tags along, forcing the guys to button up when they’d rather let loose. Everything you might hope to see in a buddy comedy called Mardi Gras: Spring Break you see. As the film’s tagline promises: “Boobs, Beads and Brews. What could go wrong?”

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Gad clarifies, “I had the time of my life shooting in New Orleans with folks like the magnificent Regina Hall and our ferociously funny writer (and now lifelong friend) Josh Heald.” But the “experience of making the film was a waking nightmare, with nonstop studio interference where we would literally have scenes written by the studio head sent for us to do the next day.”

The film, ruined before his eyes, was a case in which “nothing made sense and, worse, it was all big, broad, unmeaningful comedy in which none of the creative team had any say.”

Gad got his start in a guest spot on ER, and his big break came when he was tapped to replace Dan Fogler in the Broadway production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Though Gad was on a track and the career train was moving, Mardi Gras represented something even more worrying than a potential cinematic bomb.

“What was worse, however, is that I began to grow really concerned that I was going down a path of playing the loud fat best friend in every project I was doing,” he writes. “While it was certainly starting to pay me more money than I had ever seen before, I was worried that I was getting into a situation of being typecast.”

“Any dreams I had of following in the footsteps of Philip Seymour Hoffman or John Goodman,” he writes, “were soon going to be dashed if I stayed on this path. I knew I needed to branch out and attempt to have people see me in a new and unexpected way.”

Mardi Gras: Spring Break didn’t win over critics and isn’t even remembered as a high point of the era’s frathouse comedy cycle. But it was almost immediately followed by a call from a casting director named Allison Jones, who many years prior auditioned Gad for the role of Dwight Schrute in The Office. This time, she wanted him for The Daily Show, which would become the next big break in his career.