Gaston is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991). Voiced by American actor and singer Richard White, Gaston is an arrogant and ruthless hunter whose unrequited feelings for the intellectual Belle drive him to kill his adversary, the Beast, once he realizes she cares for him instead. Gaston serves as a foil personality to the Beast, who was once as vain as Gaston prior to his transformation.
Gaston is a character original to Disney, as he is not present in the original fairy tale. Imagined by screenwriter Linda Woolverton, Gaston was developed specifically for Disney's adaptation of Beauty and the Beast because the studio felt that the film could benefit from a strong villain, who is lacking in the original story. As the character evolves from a non-threatening aristocrat into an arrogant man relentlessly seeking Belle's hand in marriage, Gaston ultimately replaced a female relative of Belle's who the filmmakers had originally created to serve as the film's villain.
In direct contrast to his adversary the Beast, Gaston is depicted as physically handsome with an unattractive personality, both physically and emotionally embodying hypermasculinity. Both Disney and supervising animator Andreas Deja initially struggled with the concept of animating a handsome villain, which had never been attempted by the studio before. Deja ultimately based Gaston's appearance on those of handsome soap opera actors in order to create a grotesque version of the Prince Charming stock character, while some of White's own operatic mannerisms were incorporated into the character.
Gaston has been generally positively received by film critics, as his lack of "magic power or political influence" means that his villainy tends to resonate with audiences who often identify someone similar to him in real life, although some critics regard him as a less memorable villain than some of the studio's previous efforts.
Development
Conception and writing Gaston is one of several elements unique to The Walt Disney Company's animated adaptation of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Under Richard and Jill Purdum's direction, Gaston originally resembled a "foppish aristocrat" as opposed to the strong, arrogant hunter he would ultimately be revised into; The Huffington Post described early drafts of Gaston as "a weaselly, sort of wimpy character." In fact, Gaston was originally intended to resemble more of an annoying than antagonistic character, while the main villainous role belonged to Belle's aunt Marguerite instead, who plotted to force Belle into marrying Gaston. This version of Gaston was abandoned along with much of the original film treatment's elements, including Marguerite, at the behest of Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg.
After Katzenberg insisted that development on the film be completely overhauled, the studio ultimately decided to incorporate elements from filmmaker Jean Cocteau's 1946 film adaptation of the fairy tale into their own version of Beauty and the Beast. Gaston, a character who does not exist in the original fairy tale, was among several elements borrowed from the live-action version of the story, based on a character Cocteau himself had created specifically for his film: Avenant, portrayed by French actor Jean Marais who also plays the Beast in a dual role. Similar to Cocteau's addition of Avenant, Gaston was created for the animated adaptation because Disney felt that the story could potentially benefit from a legitimate villain, which the original text lacks, in addition to instilling Beauty and the Beast with a more prominent element of danger. With Marguerite eliminated, Gaston replaced her and ultimately became a more formidable villain. Thomas S. Hischak, author of Musicals in Film: A Guide to the Genre, observed that Gaston himself had been developed as "a new kind of Disney villain" because he is introduced as a harmless, comic individual who gradually changes and evolves into a much more sinister character as the film progresses. With its handsome villain and liberated heroine, both of whom had been developed into fully realized, multi-dimensional characters, finally established, Beauty and the Beasts storyline began to solidify. However, some filmmakers continued to contest whether or not Gaston was actually a strong enough villain.
In addition to eliminating Belle's sisters, screenwriter and creator Linda Woolverton introduced Gaston as a "blockheaded suitor" for the heroine, basing the character on boyfriends she had dated in the past. Several darker elements originally conceived for the film were ultimately written out of the final version, among them the idea of Gaston himself first visiting the insane asylum in which he plans on imprisoning Belle's father Maurice. After Woolverton re-wrote Belle into a more liberated Disney heroine, the animators struggled to realize the screenwriter's vision and briefly depicted the character shoving Gaston into a closet after he proposes to her, an idea Woolverton strongly contested and fought to have written out of the film in favor of Belle rejecting her suitor's proposal in a less "bitchy" way. During Gaston and the Beast's climactic battle, the character was originally intended to yell "Time to die!" to his opponent, but the writers ultimately replaced this line with "Belle is mine!" in order to return some of the scene's focus to the heroine of the story, over whom the two men are fighting. The writers also briefly deliberated having Gaston kill himself once he realizes that Belle will never love him, but this idea was also quickly discarded. Small skulls were drawn in Gaston's eyes as he descends from the Beast's castle to confirm that he does, in fact, die from his fall.
Voice and animation Disney hosted an open casting call for the character, which several actors attended. Among the actors who auditioned for the role was Rupert Everett, who Disney decided not to cast because the filmmakers felt that he did not sound arrogant enough to voice such a proud character; Everett would ultimately go on to voice Prince Charming, a similar character who appears in the Shrek film series, using the critique of not sounding arrogant enough to play Gaston to secure the role in Shrek 2 (2004), although Charming's motives and vindictive traits were more in resemblance to that of Jafar's (as he only wanted Princess Fiona for the throne and seized it in the same manner). American actor and opera singer Richard White was selected to voice Gaston. His initial audition was first recorded on audio cassette, a copy of which was then forwarded to Disney. White's feature film debut, the actor recalled that lyricist and executive producer Howard Ashman guided him through discovering how he would approach voicing Gaston without telling him exactly how to do it, describing having the opportunity to voice a character like Gaston as "freeing... cathartic, in a way." Although White did not feel like it was necessary for him to physically "become" his character in order to voice him, in retrospect, he admits that he acted much more like Gaston during recording sessions. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune compared White's "brash" vocal performance to that of actor Howard Keel.
Andreas Deja served as Gaston's supervising animator. The first villainous character to whom Deja had been assigned by Disney, the animator immediately recognized that Gaston was unique in terms of Disney villains because he was not designed to frighten both the film's hero and audience, as previous Disney villains had been. In the case of Gaston, Deja stated that viewers are unable to immediately decipher whether or not the character is actually an antagonist based on his physical appearance alone. White agreed that Gaston is "full of himself, of course, but he's not recognizably villainous" until his opinions and expectations of Belle are further explored. Deja initially struggled with the idea of designing a "supremely handsome" villain, a specific instruction administered to him by Katzenberg, but he eventually grew to understand the concept upon studying the film's underlying themes of not judging a book by its cover and "deceptive appearances". Deja explained, "I understood him from a story point of view, but visually was hard", and at times argued with Katzenberg over whether or not the character was handsome enough. Some Disney executives also shared Deja's initial hesitation over the character's appearance. Deja ultimately overcame his deliberations about the character's appearance by modeling Gaston based on handsome soap opera actors, a creative decision Katzenberg approved of, explaining to the animator "the story we're trying to tell here is don't judge a book by its cover, so Gaston has to have the opposite qualities of the Beast...no one said it was going to be easy!'".
White's casting ultimately influenced Gaston's design; the animators adjusted the character's appearance after hearing White's operatic singing voice for the first time, making Gaston similarly operatic in his movements, gestures and mannerisms. According to White, Gaston's early designs initially looked "much more Brutish" before the animators ultimately decided to go in a "more beautiful" direction, basing the character "on a grotesque version" of the Prince Charming character. Describing the design process as highly collaborative between actor and animator, White would record his lines while the animators drew his character, alternating back and forth for several months. This process allowed the animators to incorporate White's acting performance into Gaston. Because White continued to perform on Broadway while working on Beauty and the Beast, Disney would accommodate his stage career by hiring a studio to work wherever he was located. White recalled, "The experience is kind of like an actor's sandbox. You're in a room by yourself and are invited to be as creative as you can be. Anything you could imagine...they could draw!" In his book Tradigital Animate CC: 12 Principles of Animation in Adobe Animate, author Stephen Brooks observed that Deja's challenge "was to let [audiences] know that Gaston is not as courageous as everyone says he is ... but also keep him a real and credible threat" since he is a villain nonetheless.