Beauty and the Beast, originally released 20 years ago, will return to movie theaters in Disney Digital 3D this Friday, January 13th, introducing a whole new generation to Belle, the Beast and all the memorable characters from the first animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

Beauty and the Beast changed the lives of many, including that of actor Jesse Corti, who voiced LeFou, Gaston's diminutive and bumbling sidekick. Corti, who’s parents moved to the United States from Caracas, Venezuela in the early 1960’s, was always singing in the choir and performing in church functions. Years later when Beauty and the Beast came knocking on his door, “I was in New York City with the original company of [the Broadway show Les Misérables. Disney wanted Broadway singers, people who could sing and act at the same time.” His audition process was expensive and long, but it paid off, even LeFou was drawn to fit him. “I’m only 5’8” and at the time I had hair down my back and in a ponytail, but I want to make clear I was not fat. [Laughs I just want to get that out there,” he said.

Of the few things that have changed Corti’s life, Beauty and the Beast has been one of them, both professionally and personally. In the eyes of his kids he is “a big hero.” By the time Beauty and the Beast reached Broadway, Corti had moved his whole family to California, and although he did the workshops and the rehearsals, he couldn’t go on tour for six months, so he turned it down. To his surprise, it went on to become Broadway’s eight-longest running production in history. “It was a huge hit! I guess I may have some regrets about that, but I’m fine with it because I got to do film and television, which is what I originally had set out to do in California,” he adds.

Currently, Corti is in post-production of the graphic novel Night of the Living Dead: Origins, directed by Zebediah De Soto and also has shot a pilot for CBS.

You can catch the enhanced 3D version of Beauty and the Beast in theaters this Friday.