Idina Menzel needs no introduction to theater fans, who revere her Tony-winning performance as Elphaba in Wicked, as well as her recurring TV role as Lea Michele’s birth mother, Shelby Corcoran, on Glee. The 41-year-old star is a favorite of London theatergoers, as well, who have cheered her in Wicked, a concert version of Chess at the Royal Albert Hall and a solo concert at the same venue last October. Broadway.com caught up with the ever-effervescent actress and singer on the eve of a week of new shows at the Apollo Theatre, backed by a 25-piece orchestra, prior to returning to New York for her Carnegie Hall debut on October 29. She gamely answered questions about those enduring Funny Girl rumors, memories of Marvin Hamlisch, the challenge of juggling her career with that of her TV star husband, fellow Rent vet Taye Diggs, and lots more. <\/p>\n
Welcome back to London! Is the city starting to feel like your third home, after Los Angeles and New York? <\/strong> You played the Royal Albert Hall for one night last October, but now you\u2019re doing a week-long run [at the Apollo through October 14].<\/strong> You\u2019re here as a singer. Have you ever felt that you\u2019ve had to make a choice between singing and acting? <\/strong> Has that had an effect on your performing style? <\/strong> Do you worry that being a singer keeps you from getting chosen for dramatic projects, given how the industry likes to typecast? <\/strong> Singing must feel especially liberating for you.<\/strong> Your Albert Hall concert was conducted by the late Marvin Hamlisch. Do you have an abiding memory of him? <\/strong> Does the fact that your husband, Taye Diggs, works on TV in L.A limit your schedule for concerts or a longer stint on Broadway? <\/strong> So, what about Broadway? <\/strong> For a while you were spoken of as a natural Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. Does that remain an actual prospect? <\/strong> In fact, you sing \u201cDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade\u201d near the very start of your show. <\/strong> Do you think it\u2019s difficult to Broadway stars to \u201cbreak through\u201d as pop singers? <\/strong> You\u2019ve got Carnegie Hall coming up when you get back to the U.S.<\/strong> Will we see you back on Glee? <\/strong> Has being a mother mellowed you? <\/strong> Sounds to me like the new zen Idina. <\/strong> Speaking of your son, I love his name: Walker Nathaniel Diggs. He sounds like a magazine editor at The New Yorker. <\/strong> How is he shaping up as a singer? <\/strong> Idina Menzel needs no introduction to theater fans, who revere her Tony-winning performance as Elphaba in Wicked, as well as her recurring TV role as Lea Michele’s birth mother, Shelby Corcoran, on Glee. The 41-year-old star is a favorite of London theatergoers, as well, who have cheered her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":269,"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":[28,12,8,18],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-28","tag-barefoot-at-the-symphony","tag-family-life","tag-glee"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/2012london.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-4k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI love the fact that I have some experience here, starting with the friends I made when I was in Wicked. Also, being a New Yorker, it feels like a smooth transition\u2014except when I get hit by a car [laughs]. This time, I\u2019m here with my three-year-old son, so it\u2019s bound to be a very different experience.<\/p>\n
\nYes, this is a mini-UK tour. I\u2019m doing eight shows on the West End to try something different in a smaller house, the Apollo, that should be really intimate and fun, and then I\u2019m going up to Edinburgh and Manchester, which I really don\u2019t know at all. What feels great is the idea of coming to another country and being able to sell tickets; it feels good to know that what you\u2019re doing is reaching beyond your own country. That\u2019s something to be proud of.<\/p>\n
\nI see myself these days as definitely both\u2014in other words, as a performer. I have a hard time whenever it says \u201coccupation\u201d on a form. I used to write \u201centertainer,\u201d but then it started to sound like I was a stripper; I really feel now as if I\u2019m both an actress and a singer. When I was younger, I would switch in and out of mindsets if I was acting in something or singing my own music, but it\u2019s felt recently as if all of my worlds are colliding. I can\u2019t just get up and jam anymore: Any time I do a song, I have to have a story to tell.<\/p>\n
\nI keep my eyes open more when I sing, since I\u2019m aware that people need to see what I\u2019m feeling. I had found when I was nervous that I would close my eyes, but that can shut the audience out.<\/p>\n
\nThese days, I feel the industry knows that anything goes and that there are fewer rules. When I was growing up and starting in the business, everyone wanted to define who you were, so if I sang rock music, they would say I was too theatrical and when I was in Rent, they said I wasn\u2019t trained enough. But now, with Glee and things like that, I feel as if you can be on TV and sing, which used to be taboo.<\/p>\n
\nI love just standing at the piano and singing a song. That\u2019s where I can escape and find solace. Also, as I\u2019ve gotten older, that sense of independence and autonomy has been very empowering. No matter what happens\u2014what gig you could get fired from, or god forbid, my husband left me\u2014I could always go out and make a good living for me and my son from singing. It dates back to when I was doing weddings when I was 15; I always wanted to be the chick singer that makes the paycheck [laughs].<\/p>\n
\nMy greatest memories of Marvin are mostly of sitting at the piano bench with him. At any concert, we would take an encore, he would come out and sit at the piano, and I would kneel down at the bench right next to him. It\u2019s one thing to stand at the mike and sing a song, but it was something altogether different to snuggle next to someone like that at the piano bench\u2014to be invited into the sacred space of such a legend.<\/p>\n
\nEver since we\u2019ve had the baby, for sure. Our limit is, like, two weeks away from each other, and it\u2019s actually quite liberating to know that I\u2019m going to say \u201cno\u201d to this job or that one because I cannot expect him to be away from his son for that long. When we were dating, we used to take jobs all over the place, and that was very difficult, as you can imagine.<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019re going to see. I definitely plan on getting back to the theater, and there are a few things in embryonic stages that we\u2019re excited about. Taye does want me to get there.<\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s come up in so many different incarnations throughout the years. Ms. Streisand when she did it was 18 or 20 or something like that, so I feel just a little bit over the hill [laughs]; it just seems more suitable for a younger generation of girls. But I\u2019m having fun singing music from it sometimes, and that\u2019s what I give myself: I own as much of it as I can knowing that it\u2019s never really mine.<\/p>\n
\nI used to never dare sing that song, but I always knew I could sing it and put a cool take on it. Actually, I shouldn\u2019t take the credit. It was my husband who said, \u201cWhat the fuck is wrong with you? Go sing it! You have an association with it, so just do it; people want to hear your take on it.\u201d But I think that ship has probably sailed for me on stage, I really do, and I like originating new roles. On the other hand, it\u2019s like Hillary Clinton saying she\u2019ll never run for president again. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t think I have [laughs]! I have one single that got to number 15, and that is the closest I got. The songs I\u2019ve done that are the most popular\u2014that\u2019s to say, where I can hold the mike out to my audience and they know every word\u2014are not ones I wrote myself. They\u2019re \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d and songs from shows. Sure, I\u2019d love to have one big song that crossed over, and I keep aspiring to that so that people who don\u2019t go to the theater would know me because of the song as opposed to other things. But, you know, when I go on tour, I also realize how I have been gifted with some of these iconic songs, and I think, \u201cScrew it!\u201d What an honor to have a song like that [\u201cDefying Gravity\u201d] that you are expected to sing every night.<\/p>\n
\nYes! That feels good, and I\u2019m so excited for it. Then I\u2019m doing the Walt Disney Concert Hall [in Los Angeles] on New Year\u2019s Eve, and then I\u2019m giving myself a rest.<\/p>\n
\nWell, I think I\u2019m finished, but Ryan Murphy keeps everything close to the vest. I could get a call tomorrow saying, \u201cthey want you for eight episodes,\u201d though I haven\u2019t heard anything of late. I loved that experience; it\u2019s such a groundbreaking show. But, in terms of my career, I don\u2019t overthink things anymore. It\u2019s like, this is my destiny, this is how people will connect with me the most, and I\u2019m taking one thing at a time.<\/p>\n
\nOh yeah! I mean, I arrived yesterday morning off the red eye, where you don\u2019t sleep, and you know you have a morning TV show to tape and you\u2019re going to sound horrible but you just think, \u201cFuck it, what can I do?\u201d I do the best I can, and usually I do better than I think I can. I\u2019m more laid back about things instead of being overly rigid and disciplined.<\/p>\n
\n[Laughs.] The Prozac zen Idina!<\/p>\n
\nI used to say he was either going to be a great jazz musician or justice of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
\nHe already has this sense of pitch. He can repeat something that I sing to him: I sing it and he repeats it right back!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"