{"id":734,"date":"2018-07-06T16:37:27","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T16:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=734"},"modified":"2018-07-06T16:37:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T16:37:27","slug":"beaches-idina-menzel-on-daunting-task-of-following-bette-midler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/beaches-idina-menzel-on-daunting-task-of-following-bette-midler\/","title":{"rendered":"Beaches: Idina Menzel on ‘daunting task’ of following Bette Midler"},"content":{"rendered":"

A whole new generation of viewers will get to experience Beaches<\/em> via Lifetime\u2019s upcoming original film, but following in the footsteps of legendary actresses Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey was a daunting task for Idina Menzel and Nia Long.<\/p>\n

Menzel will take over Midler\u2019s role of CC, an aspiring singer who develops a lifelong friendship with a rich girl named Hillary (Hershey in the original, Long in the update) at the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In Lifetime\u2019s remake of the 1988 classic, however, the pals connect at the Venice boardwalk in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m being completely honest, I was terrified at first,\u201d Menzel said at the Television Critics Association\u2019s press tour on Friday. \u201cBoth those women, especially Bette Midler for me, was an idol my whole life. I continue to be inspired by her, but it\u2019s a daunting task.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long concurs: \u201cIt was definitely challenging and fun,\u201d she says. \u201cThere were those scenes where we had to bond as best friends. It was really natural. We really have an understanding of life, and we both have our own best friends and we\u2019re both mothers, so a lot of the themes in the film really resonate pretty easily. It\u2019s about making those scenes your own and honoring the original film\u2026 When you\u2019re afraid of something, that\u2019s the one thing you should do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Menzel says she felt like she \u201ccould spread my wings in this role,\u201d particularly when it came to the music. The Frozen<\/em> and Rent<\/em> star says she spent about an hour in the recording studio laying down the track for Midler\u2019s famed \u201cWind Beneath my Wings.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m a perfectionist; I did it a bunch of times,\u201d Menzel says. \u201cI sang it a sh\u2013load of times\u2026 I had been singing the song my whole life, ever since I was a wedding singer and bar mitzvah singer\u2026 I\u2019m well-rehearsed, it was just trying to find my own spin on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beaches<\/em> remake also puts its own spin on the music. \u201cWhat we were able to do is update the friendship\u2026 and update the music,\u201d director Allison Anders says. \u201cIdina does such beautiful versions of \u2018Wind Beneath my Wings\u2019 and \u2018The Glory of Love,\u2019 but we also have some new stuff in there as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A whole new generation of viewers will get to experience Beaches via Lifetime\u2019s upcoming original film, but following in the footsteps of legendary actresses Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey was a daunting task for Idina Menzel and Nia Long. Menzel will take over Midler\u2019s role of CC, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":735,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-45"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/1-6.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-bQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","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=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}