Interview by Daniel Robert Epstein, contributing editor<\/p>\n
Idina Menzel was in the original cast of Rent and Wicked on Broadway. She is making the transition to Hollywood with the big-budget version of Rent (now available on DVD) and Robert Towne\u2019s Ask the Dust. In Towne\u2019s film, Idina plays Vera, the deformed young woman who\u2019s gunning for the romantically inexperienced Bandini\u2019s (Colin Farrell) affections.<\/p>\n
UGO: I read that you really worked hard to do this role, why was that?<\/strong> UGO: Are you a fan of his?<\/strong> UGO: It\u2019s a guilty pleasure. Did you tell him that was your favorite?<\/strong> UGO: [laughs] I don\u2019t think it\u2019s his favorite. Was there discussion of just how deformed your character would be?<\/strong> UGO: Is she as deformed in the book?<\/strong> UGO: How tight is Robert Towne with his script?<\/strong> UGO: You\u2019re a big star on Broadway; do you want to do more movies?<\/strong> UGO: How difficult is it for a Broadway star to make that transition?<\/strong> UGO: Were you disappointed with how the movie Rent did at the box office?<\/strong> UGO: What do you have coming up?<\/strong> UGO: Would you want to do television?<\/strong> UGO: What\u2019s your audience going to be for your album?<\/strong> UGO: Are you looking forward to touring with the album?<\/strong> UGO: What\u2019s the best music concert you\u2019ve ever been to?<\/strong> Interview by Daniel Robert Epstein, contributing editor Idina Menzel was in the original cast of Rent and Wicked on Broadway. She is making the transition to Hollywood with the big-budget version of Rent (now available on DVD) and Robert Towne\u2019s Ask the Dust. In Towne\u2019s film, Idina plays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,16,20,4],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-31","tag-ask-the-dust","tag-i-stand","tag-rent"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-3U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIDINA MENZEL: Robert Towne and his enthusiasm for me doing it. I hadn\u2019t even read the script yet. I just knew that Robert had come to see me in Wicked and he saw me as this woman and was excited. Then I read the script and said, \u201cAre you serious? This is cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: Yeah, for the most part. I know you\u2019re supposed to say Chinatown is your favorite movie of his but my favorite is Tequila Sunrise because I\u2019m an \u201980s girl. I wanted to be treated like that by Mel Gibson in a whirlpool.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: The first time I met him I told him that and he just shrugged.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: Yeah, there was. We did a lot of yucky research and Robert wanted it to be shocking for that split moment in the film that you see it. Every day we\u2019d try diffeRent things. Sometimes it was makeup. Then we\u2019d try sticking on these diffeRent prosthetics and these two guys are l molding them on my ass every day.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: Yeah. I love the book so much. She\u2019s even more volatile, more explosive in the book. The original books are so amazing for the actors. They give you all these adjectives and little things to keep in mind for characters.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: He won\u2019t change his lines like a lot of actors do on film sets. But he would change his own lines; he came in and corrected himself or rewrote things.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: Yeah, I would like to.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: It depends. Everyone\u2019s path ends up being different. It\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t want to do theater, I will always come back to doing theater. I really actually like the balance of it but the Broadway stuff just burns me out after a while with eight shows a week and the discipline it takes. It\u2019s nice to leave for a period of time and do film. It\u2019s not as hard in that way to me. It\u2019s hard in other ways.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: A little bit. We didn\u2019t really care that much because we had the most wonderful experience together doing that film. The fact that we were hired in the first place was a great thing. But I was surprised. I thought there was a great energy in the movie and that all of us really translated very well. It\u2019s a little bit of a mystery to me.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: At the end of April I\u2019m doing this movie called Enchanted with Amy Adams. It\u2019s a big Disney movie. It starts with eight minutes of animation, where Amy is this princess and James Marsden is the prince. Susan Sarandon, who\u2019s the stepmother\/queen, doesn\u2019t want her marrying James Marsden, so she pushes her down this well and she ends up in Times Square and it becomes real life. Also, I\u2019m writing music. I just got signed to Warner Bros. so I\u2019m making a non-Broadway album. I\u2019m going to give it a go, doing a classy, sophisticated, soulful pop record working with Glen Ballard and other producers.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: Yeah. I didn\u2019t do anything this pilot season because I wanted to focus on this album. I really wanted to apply myself. But I would love to do that, especially since I want to be a mom eventually.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: That\u2019s a good question, because right now my audience is 13 year old girls and gay men. I think the record label will be surprised at that.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: Yeah, that\u2019s my deeply hidden dream. A great tour bus, my band, the guys and singing my own music. I always thought my music was my destiny.<\/p>\n
\nIDINA: I saw Lenny Kravitz when he was at Madison Square Garden. That was really cool. He\u2019s so hot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"