Actor Josh Gad - best known for voicing Olaf in the animated Disney hit Frozen – says playing a Jewish character in his latest movie has given him the chance to honour his grandparents, who survived the Holocaust.

Gad plays real-life lawyer Samuel Friedman, in the forthcoming biopic of Thurgood Marshall, about the first African-American Supreme Court justice.

Friedman worked with Marshall in the defence of an alleged rapist in 1940s Connecticut.  

“The stories of my grandparents surviving the camp makes the chance to play this hero who had to deal with antisemitism — though obviously in a much less sinister environment — personal, ” the actor told JTA.

“I wish my grandparents were alive to see this very personal part of my journey.”

The film, Marshall, opens in the United States on Friday.