{"id":1186,"date":"2023-09-02T11:18:36","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T15:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=1186"},"modified":"2023-09-02T11:18:36","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T15:18:36","slug":"idina-menzel-through-my-character-elsa-in-frozen-i-was-thrown-into-being-a-role-model-for-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/idina-menzel-through-my-character-elsa-in-frozen-i-was-thrown-into-being-a-role-model-for-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"Idina Menzel: \u2018Through my character Elsa in Frozen, I was thrown into being a role model for empowerment\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The actor and singer, aged 52, on what she learned by singing at weddings, her childhood dream coming true and battling vanity<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I think I was <\/strong>born singing. I was always singing around the house as a child. I felt I had something special to share, though I didn\u2019t exactly know what it was.<\/p>\n

My parents were <\/strong>very supportive of my dreams to be a performer. My mum always wanted me not to worry about what people thought of me. I\u2019ve sort of failed when it comes to that \u2013 you have to work really hard at not caring about what people think.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t a kid actor.<\/strong> My mum wouldn\u2019t let me work professionally until I graduated from high school and college. I did wedding singing as a teenager though, which was quite the education for a 16-year-old girl, going out into the world at night, working with a bunch of strange men on a bandstand. It helped define me as a vocalist \u2013 I sang so many genres of music. I learned how to emulate artists like Billie Holiday, Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin, and as a young woman you absorb their greatness through osmosis.<\/p>\n

My first professional <\/strong>job was Rent<\/em>. I was 25. When it started it was Off-Broadway \u2013 a little show at the New York Theatre Workshop in the Lower East Side. We had no idea what it would become. And then the producers came in one day and announced we were moving to Broadway. It had been a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl.<\/p>\n

When you earn <\/strong>success and then are dropped from record labels, or all of a sudden you have to prove yourself in auditions again, find a new moment, you learn to really embrace the process and not take things for granted.<\/p>\n

Frozen changed my life<\/strong> in so many ways. The film\u2019s messaging resonated with young audiences. Through my character Elsa, I was thrown into being a role model for empowerment and self-esteem. I wanted to embrace that responsibility, while still having my own lessons to learn in my life. That has been something I love but also wrestle with.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re singing<\/strong> Let It Go or even Defying Gravity in Wicked<\/em> and you\u2019re a woman that sometimes feels depressed or insecure about your own life, it feels hypocritical. I\u2019ve wanted to make sure people understand that we all struggle, that you can\u2019t always rise above \u2013 there are going to be days where it\u2019s going to be really hard.<\/p>\n

Becoming a mum <\/strong>gave me a new perspective. It rescued me from my own self-absorption. It made me less preoccupied with being perfect. Feeling like I had to hit every note perfectly on stage became an impossibility \u2013 if you\u2019re up late with your kid because he has a fever, there\u2019s nothing you can do about it. Now I get on stage and surrender.<\/p>\n

Being in love <\/strong>is tricky. We learn that we need to make compromises in order to be a good partner. But we don\u2019t want to compromise ourselves too much, lose too much of our own identity. When you strike that balance with a person, it\u2019s special.<\/p>\n

Singing at the Super Bowl<\/strong> and the Oscars were moments. If someone told me when I was a little girl that I\u2019d be doing that, I\u2019d have said, \u201cNo way!\u201d I tried to take those moments in, to be present.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fighting <\/strong>getting older. I look good in outfits because they\u2019re sucking me in everywhere \u2013 I need to be sucked in. I\u2019d love to say, \u201cI love ageing so much.\u201d But from a vanity aspect, it\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n

Idina Menzel\u2019s new album, Drama Queen, is out now via BMG<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The actor and singer, aged 52, on what she learned by singing at weddings, her childhood dream coming true and battling vanity I think I was born singing. I was always singing around the house as a child. I felt I had something special to share, though I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[77,76],"class_list":["post-1186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-77","tag-drama-queen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/4344.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-j8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}