<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Q: You will be performing at a benefit for PACER, which works with children with disabilities. How do you vet the benefits you choose?<\/p>\n
A: It all comes down to how much I want to be away from my son, to be honest. So it\u2019s more about scheduling. OK, he\u2019s with his dad so I won\u2019t feel so guilty about being away that weekend. Of course, when [the benefit is] for children, for some reason, I\u2019m just drawn to that.<\/p>\n
\n
Q: What do you do when you know you can\u2019t reach your high notes during a particular performance?<\/p>\n
A: It happens a lot. I\u2019m really good at improvising musically. I give myself an A, B and C show \u2014 all of them are really good but C has melodies that are a little easier. I\u2019ve learned it\u2019s not about the high notes that makes people get goosebumps, it\u2019s about your connection, your heart and your soul with the song. \u2026 And the more successful you are, you put the mic out in the audience and they know the words and they\u2019ll sing the high notes for you.<\/p>\n
\n
Q: Compare singing \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner\u201d at the Super Bowl last year with doing it at the White House\u2019s Easter Egg Roll last month.<\/p>\n
A: The [Easter Egg Roll] was pretty intense. I met the president right before and my son got to meet him. I told him I might put a cheat sheet down \u2019cause you make me very nervous. He said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, if you forget the words, I\u2019ll sing it.\u201d To have both the Obamas standing on either side of you, the fear of screwing it up is pretty crazy. I had to focus on my son, so it took me out of the nerves a little bit. The Super Bowl was equal in nerves. The Super Bowl is bigger because it was live and the Easter Roll just streamed on some little thing but the president is watching you. They gave me the China Room to vocalize in.<\/p>\n
\n
Q: You\u2019re working on a pop album \u2014 is it a goal for you to be a pop star?<\/p>\n
A: Maybe it was a long time ago. Now I\u2019m less goal-oriented. I\u2019ve been around enough to see the ebb and flow of the music industry. I\u2019ve been disappointed a lot. I just do it to work with the coolest people I can and they\u2019re going to help me learn. \u201cFrozen\u201d kind of bridged a gap for me and got me on some pop radio stations.<\/p>\n
\n
Q: When you perform \u201cLet It Go\u201d in concert and invite the kids to come sing with you, you become a mom as much as a star.<\/p>\n
A: Is that a compliment or was it kinda lame? When a crazy parent throws their little 3-year-old on a 6-foot stage, it becomes a precarious situation. There\u2019s definitely a maternal thing that happens. I have my own connection to the song and what it means to me as a woman. It\u2019s similar to Elphaba in \u201cWicked.\u201d The two characters have a commonality: The really strong, fierce, unique woman who\u2019s afraid to be all of those things for fear of being alienated. As women, we often worry about being our stronger, smarter self because someone\u2019s not going to like it. I\u2019ve felt that way in my life.<\/p>\n
When I sing it surrounded by kids, it becomes a whole \u2019nother thing. It\u2019s about kids finding their voice. I like to see kids be proud enough to sing out literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Q: How much work have you done on \u201cFrozen 2\u201d?<\/p>\n
A: Not that much. They\u2019re still writing it. We know they want to do it with us and we want to do it with them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Q: What does your son think of \u201cFrozen\u201d?<\/p>\n
A: We were talking about it over pancakes this morning with a friend of mine and Walker said, \u201cAucccch. It\u2019s so boring.\u201d He\u2019s a boy, there\u2019s princesses. \u201cFrozen\u201d takes Mommy away from Walker. It means there\u2019s strangers that come up to me. It\u2019s just work to him, and it gets in the way. He does have an emotional connection to his mom singing, and it moves him but he doesn\u2019t know why.<\/p>\n
\n
Q: Why do you often perform barefoot?<\/p>\n
A: Honestly, I\u2019m not that comfortable in heels. I like to feel the floor. I feel like I can get more into my technical diaphragm support as a singer. I give myself songs and notes that are challenging and to be worrying about teetering on heels \u2014 it\u2019s one less thing to worry about. But certain outfits don\u2019t look good in barefoot. So you have to have a trade-off once in a while. At the Oscars when I sang \u2014 nobody saw this \u2014 I had on the biggest platform, ugliest shoes underneath my dress so I\u2019d feel tall, thin and pretty but they were like standing on blocks they were so strong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Idina Menzel sashays onto the stage at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Saturday for the annual PACER Center benefit, she\u2019ll size up the audience. When you\u2019re a star of Broadway (\u201cWicked,\u201d \u201cRent,\u201d \u201cIf\/Then\u201d), recordings (\u201cLet It Go\u201d), TV (\u201cGlee\u201d) and movies (\u201cFrozen\u201d), you have various constituencies. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-47"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-bW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","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=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":741,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}