{"id":749,"date":"2018-07-06T18:28:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T18:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=749"},"modified":"2018-07-06T18:29:02","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T18:29:02","slug":"idina-menzel-interview-frozen-made-me-a-role-model-for-young-girls-but-im-not-im-a-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/idina-menzel-interview-frozen-made-me-a-role-model-for-young-girls-but-im-not-im-a-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Idina Menzel interview: ‘Frozen made me a role model for young girls. But I’m not, I’m a mess’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Idina Menzel will always remember performing Let it Go at the Oscars in 2014 \u2013 but not for the reasons you might expect. The anthem from Frozen, for which Menzel voiced the lead character Elsa, won the award for best original song that night and went on to imprint itself on the memory of even the 10 people left in the world who haven\u2019t yet seen the film.<\/p>\n

Menzel, a veteran of Broadway who will reprise the role of Elsa for the sequel (of which more later) says that at the height of the hysteria surrounding the Disney animation, she felt as if she was leading a double life. \u201cIt was such a strange dichotomy,\u201d she tells me on a hot Friday evening in late July. \u201cThere was this thing of having worked so hard my whole life and finally having this huge song. To be at the Oscars, and to have all the glamour of that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

She pauses for a moment. \u201cAnd then to come home and have to go to mediation with my ex, figuring out which days he was visiting our son and where we were going, and the sadness, and the regret. It was\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Not a great time, I\u00a0suggest? She laughs. \u201cI mean, it was rich. It was rich, it was full.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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J<\/span>ust as Frozen was becoming the biggest animated movie ever released, Menzel\u2019s decade-long marriage to the actor Taye Diggs, with whom she starred in Rent, was in its death throes. She was also doing eight shows a week in the Broadway production If\/Then, earning her a third Tony nomination, but making life somewhat hectic.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy career is what makes me feel confident,\u201d she says. \u201cTo feel self-sufficient and like I don\u2019t need a man to support me and all that kind of stuff makes me feel good about myself. It\u2019s just, you know\u2026\u201d Another pause. \u201cEveryone talks about me being a role model for young girls and that\u2019s not always the truth in my day-to-day personal life. I\u2019m not constantly practising what I preach.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m a little uncomfortable carrying that banner. I\u2019m not always \u2018Oh, I feel so great about myself today. I\u2019m a powerful, confident woman, and I\u2019m not going to care what anyone else thinks of me!\u2019,\u201d Menzel begins to laugh. \u201cI mean it\u2019s all bullshit really. I can be a mess. The older I get, I get wiser about some things, and yet I get more fragile and vulnerable about others.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>his is a relief to hear, given that the 45-year-old is something of a go-to actress for producers looking for a feisty female lead: be it Elsa letting it go; Elphaba defying gravity in Wicked; or Maureen protesting her way through Rent. It was the original 1996 Broadway production of Rent that gave Menzel \u2013 the daughter of a pyjama salesman and a psychotherapist \u2013 her first professional role, after a Long Island childhood spent singing at weddings and bar mitzvahs.<\/p>\n

Next, she\u2019s taking on Bette Midler\u2019s part for an American television remake of the 1988 weepie Beaches \u2013 so no pressure there, then.\u00a0 Today Menzel is not promoting a role. She is promoting herself, in the form of her new album, Idina.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I have a lot of guilt about divorce. I come from divorced parents and I said I wouldn\u2019t ever do it<\/q>Idina Menzel<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I<\/span>t is her fifth record in 20 years but her first prominent release since Frozen catapulted her into the stratosphere. (There was a Christmas album in 2014, including some original songs, but one senses it wasn\u2019t quite as much a labour of love as this eponymous release).<\/p>\n

I ask if it\u2019s a deliberate attempt to strike out alone after her successes in ensembles on Broadway or unseen in Frozen. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s breaking out,\u201d she says, and something about her tone suggests that the sudden Elsa effect might be both a blessing and a curse for an actress who has been slogging away for more than two decades. \u201cIt\u2019s just me. It\u2019s a new beginning. It\u2019s an album where I explore a lot of things that have been going on in my life. It\u2019s been a turbulent couple of years, with some great stuff and not so great stuff, so a lot of people will feel like they get to know me on a first-name basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>he first single, I See You, is an empowering ballad for the \u201chopeless\u201d, \u201cthe almost forgotten\u201d and \u201cthose who got lost along the way\u201d. Queen of Swords is a pop tune that wouldn\u2019t be out of place on a Taylor Swift album (the two performed Let it Go on Swift\u2019s tour last year, with Swift dressing as Olaf, the snowman from Frozen, and Menzel dressing as Elsa).<\/p>\n

There is a song called Perfect Story, which features the lyrics \u201cI\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t give you the textbook happy ending\u201d, and is clearly an apology to her seven-year old son for getting divorced from his father.\u00a0 \u201cI have a lot of guilt about that,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI come from divorced parents and I said I wouldn\u2019t ever do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody ever wants to get divorced, I say. \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll always be hard on myself I guess. I want to do the right thing by my son, and that means balancing my work and my quality time with him. I know he needs to grow up seeing a really happy, confident mother, then he\u2019ll be drawn to those kinds of women.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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P<\/span>laying the part of the happy, confident mother appears to be the role of her life, but it is actually her vulnerability that makes Menzel such an endearing performer, and that sets her rendition of Let it Go apart from the countless cover versions that have since sprung up on YouTube or in X\u00a0Factor auditions.<\/p>\n

She says she has spent a lot of time beating herself up, surrounding herself with judgmental people. \u201cI wish I could put on more of a front and a fa\u00e7ade and not be quite so transparent,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it\u2019s exhausting trying to be someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask her what her voice means to her, and she is quick to reply. \u201cI think my voice means too much to me, or has meant too much to me in the past.\u201d It has defined who she is, she says, ever since she was a little girl, when her ability to sing set her apart from her peers, made her somehow other. \u201cSo much so that when I screwed up or missed a note, everything about me would crumble. I felt I wasn\u2019t going to be appreciated or liked.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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D<\/span>oes she ever get depressed by her work? \u201cYeah. When I get sick and I get laryngitis, or when I perform and don\u2019t do that great, I do get really depressed. Or if I read something shitty that someone wrote about me. But when you have a child you realise that none of it matters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m pretty disciplined. I really take care of my voice. But what do you do when you have a show and your kid wakes up with a fever in the middle of the night before? You go on stage, you think you\u2019re never going to get through this, and that\u2019s when you say to yourself, \u2018Well, you weren\u2019t going to not sleep next to your sick son, were you?\u2019 Are you going to be mad at yourself because your voice is scratchy? No. You\u2019re just going to change the melody a little and people will care because you\u2019ve made them feel something, not because you\u2019ve hit a certain note.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I<\/span>n Frozen, Menzel had to portray a tormented ice queen. In person, she could hardly be warmer \u2013 she\u2019s the kind of woman you could imagine pouring your heart out to in a late-night drinking session. She says she still loves performing Let it Go, despite the painful memories that it evokes for her. \u201cI won\u2019t ever look a gift horse in the mouth,\u201d she says. \u201cI just feel bad that some parents may be sick of me because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

We discuss her appearance at the Democratic National Convention this summer, where she performed a moving rendition of the Burt Bacharach number What the World Needs Now with other stars of Broadway in memory of the victims of the Orlando shooting (\u201cIt was so\u2026 it was just very powerful\u201d).<\/p>\n

She has sung for Barack Obama. Would she sing for Donald Trump? She screams with laughter. \u201cNo I would not. I try not to be too political but I can\u2019t help it. I wouldn\u2019t.\u201d She tells me that recently an older acquaintance \u201cunfriended\u201d her on Facebook \u201cbecause he saw me at the Democratic convention. He told my father. I was like, \u2018Well, what can I do, daddy?\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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S<\/span>he\u2019s hopeful that Hillary Clinton will be America\u2019s next president but, she says, \u201cI\u2019m a little scared. Did you guys think that Brexit would actually happen? Now that has happened, it\u2019s like, wait, we had better not take this for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t hold back when discussing ageism and sexism in Hollywood. She says that Broadway \u201chas always had amazing roles for women. But I live in LA now, more than I do New York, and you definitely feel that age is an issue here\u201d. She played the green-skinned witch Elphaba in the original 2003 stage production of Wicked, but it seems she will not star in the big screen version \u2013 it is rumoured that in Stephen Daldry\u2019s 2019 film, the part will go instead to Lea Michele, who played Menzel\u2019s daughter in Glee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Producers give me a hug and kiss and say \u2018We love you!\u2019. And I think: \u2018You\u2019re not going to give me that role are you, s—head?\u2019<\/q>Idina Menzel<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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W<\/span>hile Menzel has not officially been ruled out of the film, she says the producers \u201ckind of allude to the fact that they think I\u2019m too old. I just tell them to CGI it! I mean, I will be green. Just Benjamin Button me a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just kind of look at me and give me a hug and kiss and say \u2018We love you!\u2019. And I think: \u2018You\u2019re not going to give me that role are you, shithead?\u2019\u2009\u201d She laughs, but says that the whole issue makes her feel \u201ca sort of sadness. I have a hard time with ageing on certain days, but it\u2019s more a sadness that I would love to play the role that I originated. Elphaba\u2019s my girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

One role Menzel will be reprising is that of Elsa, in the much anticipated sequel to Frozen, expected for release in 2018. I ask if the character will get a girlfriend in the film \u2013 the subject of feverish wishful thinking on social media. \u201cOh yeah, ahahahaha, err,\u201d says Menzel. For the first time during our conversation, she clams up. \u201cThat\u2019s up to Disney. They\u2019re writing the script.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I<\/span> try this instead: would she like Elsa to have\u00a0a girlfriend? \u201cI think it would be a great thing,\u201d she beams. \u201cI mean maybe. Yeah. That\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say.\u201d Before Frozen 2, she has plans to take her new album on tour, but first she is filming Beaches. \u201cIt could be career suicide I guess,\u201d she says, \u201cbut it\u2019s a great role and I\u2019m getting to put some of my own music into the movie so it was an offer I couldn\u2019t turn down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since her break-up from Diggs, she has a new boyfriend, Aaron Lohr, with whom she also starred in Rent, and they have recently moved in together. She looks forward to the simple things, like picking up her son from school.\u00a0 \u201cI think I\u2019ve stopped apologising for myself,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m owning all these experiences I\u2019ve had, all the relationships, all the mediums\u00a0I\u2019ve worked in, all the mistakes and the accolades.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve realised they all make up a life and that\u2019s going to come out in the way I sing. And there\u2019s a peace\u00a0that comes with understanding that, rather than fighting it all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idina Menzel will always remember performing Let it Go at the Oscars in 2014 \u2013 but not for the reasons you might expect. The anthem from Frozen, for which Menzel voiced the lead character Elsa, won the award for best original song that night and went on to […]<\/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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-47"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-c5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","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=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":750,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}