IDINA Menzel has revealed why she still loves singing her hits from Frozen and Wicked – because they help remind her what she wants to be in life.<\/p>\n
As the voice of Elsa in Frozen, the Broadway star is known to a generation of youngsters for her powerhouse vocal on Let It Go, while she played the misunderstood witch Elphaba in Wicked.<\/p>\n
And although Idina’s a massive star, she can still relate to her most famous parts, and of being an outsider.<\/p>\n
“I feel very proud of it, and quite a responsibility, actually, to the young people that have connected with these characters,” she says, speaking before a first Glasgow visit to play the Royal Concert Hall on June 24.<\/p>\n
“It’s a gift, but I need to practice what I preach and be aware of being a role model to kids in the crowd.<\/p>\n
“These characters remind me of what I need to learn in life, too, particularly about self-esteem and confidence, and my own need as a woman to embrace what makes me different.”<\/p>\n
When we speak, Idina’s heading for the airport to enjoy a few days holiday before her European tour kicks off.<\/p>\n
She’s in a relaxed mode, but admits that even with all her success there’s still a lot of insecurities too.<\/p>\n
“I’m just like everyone else, I have good days and bad days,” she says.<\/p>\n
“There’s days when it’s easier to get out there and not care what people think, and then there’s others when it’s more complicated and you have to build yourself up.<\/p>\n
“That’s why I consider singing these songs an incredible gift, because not only are they beautiful and connect with other people, but they remind me what I want to be.”<\/p>\n
Idina tasted the spotlight as far back as 1996, when she played Maureen in Rent.<\/p>\n
It was her first big part, having previously been working as a wedding singer while studying, yet Rent wasn’t the springboard to lasting stardom she’d hoped for.<\/p>\n
“After Rent I got a record deal, which was a dream of mine, but nobody bought the album and I got dropped,” she recalls.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t pursue all the other ventures that I could have done, and I had to start over again.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t until years later that Wicked came about.<\/p>\n
“What’s wonderful about that, and what I can appreciate in retrospect, is how these things ebb and flow, and now I can appreciate the moment and where I am just now.<\/p>\n
“Jonathan Larson (composer of Rent) passed away on the show’s opening night, and I think that gave a bunch of us in our early 20s something to grapple with, and ground us – it gave us a deeper understanding of what’s important in life.”<\/p>\n
If Wicked brought Idina major attention again, particularly for her jaw-dropping vocal on Defying Gravity, then Disney smash-hit Frozen shone an even greater spotlight, with the Oscar-winning Let It Go being firmly established in modern pop culture.<\/p>\n
A Frozen sequel is already being planned, though the Tony award winning songstress can’t reveal too much about it yet.<\/p>\n
“I’m excited it’s happening, but it’s still in the creative stages,” she adds.<\/p>\n
“They’re still literally working on the plot, so it’s a couple of years away.”<\/p>\n
Idina’s major trio of characters are all strong female roles, and the lack of such parts in films is something that’s become a hotly debated topic in Hollywood.<\/p>\n
Idina reckons theatre has always provided more room for stronger women than Tinseltown.<\/p>\n
“Theatre’s always made room for great women,” she enthuses.<\/p>\n
“It’s one thing I feel lucky in – Wicked is really about two strong women, and going back in the day, there’s always been strong women, or strong sopranos, that the story would revolve around.<\/p>\n
“It would be nice if the film industry took notice of theatre in that regard.”<\/p>\n
Her Glasgow visit next week will see her accompanied by her son, five-year-old Walker, and her mother, while she’ll be playing all of her biggest hits and a few surprising covers, including Radiohead’s Creep.<\/p>\n
There’s a couple of tunes you’ll never hear from her, though – the songs that she got fed up of performing in her wedding singer days.<\/p>\n
“I got sick of performing Wind Beneath My Wings,” she laughs.<\/p>\n
“It’s a great song but it’s a bit tiring after the 800th time, especially when it looked like the mom and the bride had been having a fight beforehand…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
IDINA Menzel has revealed why she still loves singing her hits from Frozen and Wicked – because they help remind her what she wants to be in life. As the voice of Elsa in Frozen, the Broadway star is known to a generation of youngsters for her powerhouse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[36,7,8,38,11],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-36","tag-career","tag-family-life","tag-frozen","tag-world-tour-2015"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-7r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","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=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}