‘Central Park’ Creator Josh Gad on Molly’s Puberty Journey: From Periods to First Bras, We’re ‘Allowing This Young Girl to Grow’

15.06.2022 - 03:35 / variety.com

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorThough Season 2 of Apple TV+’s “Central Park” features a slew of changes for the lovable Tillermans, one family member has a harder time than most. Not only is daughter Molly — now voiced by Emmy Raver-Lampman to provide accurate representation for the mixed-race character — navigating puberty, but she also goes shopping for her first bra and has her first glimpse of romance.Josh Gad, who voices Birdie and co-created the series alongside Loren Bouchard and Nora Smith, says the addition of Raver-Lampman really allowed the writers to dive into the character, using her experience to help the character grow.

He says, “The second season was really Molly’s season.”Here, Gad and Raver-Lampman reflect on Molly’s evolution this season and how the show’s catchiest ear worm, by Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, came together. Josh Gad: We were blessed — but blessed is too late a term — for Emmy Raver-Lampman’s addition and contribution to the show because it completely changed the dynamic of Molly in a way that we felt allowed us to grow that character exponentially.

A part of that discussion, around the time Emmy agreed to grace us with her brilliance, was that we wanted to not be afraid of allowing this young girl to grow.Our writers’ room has some amazing voices in it, and in particular, some amazing female voices we wanted to talk about their own experiences growing up and encountering the various things that come along with going through puberty. It could be getting your first bra, having a period and a lot of these things that are sometimes taboo in general.