In addition to getting to attend Idina Menzel\u2019s Blogger Tweetup, we also got the chance to talk to her over the phone as she was busy promoting her new concert tour! We have been huge fans of Idina Menzel since long before Glee was on the air, so it was an amazing opportunity getting to speak with the Broadway legend. You definitely know her as Shelby Corcoran, Rachel Berry\u2019s mother on Glee, but you may also know her from the Original Broadway Casts of Rent and Wicked. We chatted with her about being on Glee, her upcoming concert tour, being a mother and much more! If you\u2019re a fan of Idina\u2019s, you can go to IdinaMenzel.com\/tours to see when she\u2019ll be in your area. Enjoy the interview!<\/p>\n
We at GleeFan.com have a few questions for you and also some that we\u2019ve collected from Glee fans through Twitter and the like. To start if off, can you tell us about your upcoming concert tour? You\u2019re about to be in DC with the National Symphony Orchestra, so what is that like?<\/p>\n
We at GleeFan.com have a few questions for you and also some that we\u2019ve collected from Glee fans through Twitter and the like. To start if off, can you tell us about your upcoming concert tour? You\u2019re about to be in DC with the National Symphony Orchestra, so what is that like?<\/strong> We understand that you\u2019ll be singing two songs that you sang on Glee<\/em>. Are you excited for that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I had a great time on Glee,<\/em> and I just had a baby when I was filming those episodes and a couple months later, it was really fun for me to get back to work and be on such a groundbreaking hit show and to be singing and working with theater people. It was a really nice way of getting back into the swing of things after being pregnant and not doing much else professionally. So yeah, I\u2019ve taken a couple of the songs and orchestrated them in this context, and they seem to go over really well and they sound beautiful. \u00a0I\u2019m looking forward to doing it!<\/p>\n Could you tell us a little bit about how you got the role of Shelby Corcoran on Glee<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was sort of a little bit of an enigma. My husband and I were huge fans and we\u2019d Tivo it, so I told my manager that Id\u2019 love to be on the show if it ever came up. My manager put it out there in the universe, and then I don\u2019t know if it was the fans that made a connection between Lea and myself or Ryan Murphy, but it all worked out. That\u2019s all I know.<\/p>\n Yeah, with the fans, we were all convinced that you would be the perfect person to bring on for the role of Rachel\u2019s mom. There was a lot of early discussion just from the fans about how you should be on the show. Did you see any of this or think that it would actually happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n I hate to sound like it wasn\u2019t important to me, but ever since I\u2019ve become a mother, things have changed. I\u2019ve really been focused on diapers, late nights and my husband with the baby, and that\u2019s kind of the beautiful thing about having children. It gives you a new perspective, and so I wasn\u2019t hanging around waiting. It just came up and it was a terrific opportunity, and probably there are more wonderful things happening for me now since I had the baby because I\u2019m not sitting around desperately waiting. I have a real purpose in my life, and that seems to open more doors. Does that make sense?<\/p>\n Yeah. One of the questions that we had was if being a mom had affected your career.<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I don\u2019t know yet. I\u2019ll have to look back in a couple of years to say. I know that it has affected me as a human being. I know that I feel more whole as a woman and what I can accomplish and who I am. I just feel like I have more purpose in this life than just being self-absorbed and worrying about the next audition or job. It just puts everything into perspective. Building a family with my husband and all that stuff has become really important, and what seems to be happening is that things are coming up when I\u2019m not expecting them. The time in my life when I\u2019d be so worried about what the next job was going to be or when the money would be coming in, those were the times when less opportunity came about. It\u2019s the time when you\u2019re most free and open that the best things seem to happen.<\/p>\n Do you think that being a mom in real life helped you play the character of Shelby or do you think that it made it harder for you since she had chosen to give up her kid?<\/strong><\/p>\n That was a hard one for me to reconcile, Shelby\u2019s actions, because for me, my daughter is my daughter. It doesn\u2019t matter how old she is or what I\u2019ve missed in her life. If you have the opportunity to reconcile with your daughter, I would do it. Whether or not I wanted a baby <\/em>would have had nothing to do with it. It\u2019s something that I as myself, Idina, never would have thought of doing, but as an actor you have to find a way of getting it to make sense to you, and hopefully we\u2019ll find out more about that.<\/p>\n So do you think that you\u2019ll be coming back later this season or possibly the next?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I\u2019m not sure. I hope so! We\u2019ve talked about it, and we\u2019ll see what happens, but I really hope so.<\/p>\n Other than Glee<\/em>, do you have any upcoming projects? I understand that you\u2019re working on another album\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n I just started getting back in the studio because I\u2019ve really been inspired by these concerts that I\u2019ve been doing. I sort of revisiting some of the old standards and getting to arrange them with these symphonies, so I\u2019m going to focus on that sound in the studio even with the more original material as well. I\u2019m always developing something theatrically, which is very important to me \u2013 that I do something original, and those things take years to come to fruition, but they\u2019re the most rewarding and they seem to work the best for me. I feel like I want to help nurture those composers and writers that are doing originals and be a part of that experience.<\/p>\n Now we have a few questions collected from the Glee fans, who are obviously your fans as well. One we got a few times was: what is your most memorable fan interaction \u2013 either touching or crazy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh my gosh. I thought of touching first because just a couple weeks ago, I was in Cincinnati and I met a young girl after the show who was blind. She was with her grandfather and he said that when she was born, she had a tumor on her optic nerve. They didn\u2019t give her much time to live, and here she is standing before my, 16 years old, inspired by the music. That was just too much for me to handle, just being in front of her, and we connected, so I\u2019ve been in touch with her since. That was pretty powerful.<\/p>\n Wow, that\u2019s amazing. Another question I got was if you\u2019re going to have an international tour. Of course everyone\u2019s asking, \u201cWill you come to [whatever country they\u2019re from]?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, we\u2019re waiting for some offers. We\u2019re hoping to get to Europe and to Canada for sure. I\u2019d love to go to Asia and I\u2019ve noticed that there are a lot of people from Argentina and Brazil that want me to come. I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s Wicked or what\u2019s been down there that they know me from.<\/p>\n Yeah, we had a lot of people asking questions from South America. I think I remember a couple of them were from Venezuela as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n [Laughs<\/em>] Ok!<\/p>\n So, thinking back to when you were younger, did you always know that you wanted to be a professional singer or on Broadway?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I always wanted to be a singer. As long as I can remember, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve wanted and what I\u2019ve loved. My aspirations changed colors a little bit here and there as I got older, as to whether it was Broadway or a songwriter and rock star, but I always wanted to perform.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a fun one: have you ever Googled yourself or looked yourself up on YouTube?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, I have, but it\u2019s usually not a very fun experience for me.<\/p>\n Uh-oh.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, because no matter how many wonderful things you do, there\u2019s always someone there to put you in your place. So I try not to do that anymore.<\/p>\n Yeah, as soon as you offer people anonymity, the claws come out.<\/strong><\/p>\n Exactly. It can be a very evil place, the internet\u2026<\/p>\n Last fan question, if you could sing a duet with anyone in the world, who would it be and what song would you sing?<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh no, this will take me a sec\u2026 It would be Bono and the song would be\u2026 Oh, I know, \u201cI Still Haven\u2019t Found What I\u2019m Looking For.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, thank you so much for talking to us!<\/strong><\/p>\n Thank you<\/em>! I really appreciate the support!<\/p>\n
\nI actually was there this past summer with Marvin Hamlisch at the Wolf Trap, so we hit it off, Marvin and I. He\u2019s going to be conducting, and we also performed together at the White House for the president the same weekend. All these dates are myself with a symphony orchestra and it\u2019s different for me then when I got out and promote my album with this my 5 or 6 piece rock band and I\u2019m really enjoying be up there in front of these thrilling musicians and hearing the music taken onto a whole other level.<\/p>\n