{"id":925,"date":"2019-05-17T20:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T20:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=925"},"modified":"2022-01-08T17:25:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T17:25:32","slug":"idina-menzel-talks-badass-superhero-power-of-frozen-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/idina-menzel-talks-badass-superhero-power-of-frozen-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Idina Menzel Talks “Badass,” “Superhero” Power of ‘Frozen 2’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Singer and actress Idina Menzel offered a preview of the highly anticipated sequel to Frozen<\/em> when she spoke to The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>at an event honoring Wicked<\/em> composer Stephen Schwartz on Thursday night in L.A.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a real girl power, badass kind of superhero type of movie. They’re really strong, the two sisters, and it’s exciting. The music is beautiful,\u201d Menzel told THR<\/em> of the script for Frozen<\/em> 2<\/em>, which is set to hit theaters Nov. 22, with another story of regal sisters Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (voiced by Menzel) in the Norwegian world of Arendelle.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Menzel thinks the Broadway smash musical\u00a0Wicked<\/em>, in which she originated the role of Elphaba in 2003, is more relevant now than ever, because of the focus on women realizing their potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt resonates even more today considering that it’s a story that is about women finding what makes them extremely powerful and beautiful in their life. It’s about not compromising who you are. It’s about taking that thing that makes you so powerful and harnessing it and using it to change the world for the better,\u201d she told THR<\/em> at \u201cAn Evening of Wicked Fun Honoring Stephen Schwartz\u201d at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n

\u201cElsa, Elphaba, they’re young women that are afraid of their incredible power and then learn a way to harness that,\u201d Menzel added. She later thanked Schwartz on stage for embracing \u201cthe power and beauty of fierce, incredible women\u2026not apologizing for who you are, especially in this time we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz told THR<\/em> that \u201cbecause unfortunately bad things are happening in our country,\u201d the Wizard of Oz<\/em>-inspired world of Wicked<\/em> has tied into contemporary politics and the contemporary \u201csocial situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately the world is closer to the world of Wicked<\/em>. The sort of spin and fake news and manipulation of the media, that are part of what the wizard and his henchpeople do in Wicked<\/em>, has become more and more aggravated in our current world. I wish it were less relevant, not more,\u201d Schawartz told THR<\/em>. \u201cThe point of recognizing what’s wrong and maybe where we’ve taken a wrong turn is that you can fix it. So I hope we will.”<\/p>\n

The composer of Pippin<\/em>, Godspell<\/em> and Wicked<\/em>\u00a0is in the midst of working on the film adaptation of Wicked<\/em>, set to bow in 2021 from Universal. Schwartz said they\u2019re still getting the script ready \u201cbut the process is heating up,\u201d as they\u2019re starting to talk about casting. Director Stephen Daldry \u2014 who directed The Reader<\/em> and executive produces The Crown<\/em> \u2014 has been meeting with production designers.<\/p>\n

Schwartz is eager to tell the story cinematically, “to be able to do things that we thought about when we were doing the show, but of course we couldn’t do,” he said. “And it’s been wonderful for my collaboration…Winnie Holzman and myself to be back in that world and back with those characters we love and think about ‘How do you tell that story as a movie?’\u201d (And is Menzel involved in the film adaptation? “No, not really,” she laughed).<\/p>\n

The evening commenced with a dinner reception by Wolfgang Puck followed by performances by Menzel, Megan Hilty (Wicked<\/em>), Liz Callaway (Anastasia<\/em>), Jordan Fisher (Rent: Live)<\/em>, Isaiah Johnson (Hamilton<\/em>), Andrea Martin (Pippin<\/em>) and opera singer Angel Blue.<\/p>\n

Before singing \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d and \u201cFor Good,\u201d Menzel continued the praise of Schwartz on stage, saying being in Wicked<\/em> \u201cchanged the trajectory of my life and changed everything about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer said she\u2019s proud to be forever associated with Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. \u201cWhen you get to grow up with something\u2026your whole life a certain character\u2026she keeps changing you.\u2026 I felt like you saw me,\u201d Menzel said. She added that playing the role was \u201cthe greatest privilege of my life.”<\/p>\n

Producer of upcoming films Wicked<\/em>, Aladdin<\/em> and Legally Blonde 3<\/em>, Marc Platt took the stage to honor Schwartz. \u201cStephen Schwartz is indeed a man of all good gifts. The gift of melody and music, the gift of poetry and prose, but as you heard all night long, his most beautiful gift is a very singular generosity of spirit,\u201d Platt told the Annenberg crowd. “His lasting legacy has been vital to the evolution of the American musical.”<\/p>\n

Schwartz closed out the show by singing and accompanying himself on piano for \u201cCan You Imagine That?\u201d from his forthcoming Hans Christian Andersen musical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singer and actress Idina Menzel offered a preview of the highly anticipated sequel to Frozen when she spoke to The Hollywood Reporter at an event honoring Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz on Thursday night in L.A. \u201cIt’s a real girl power, badass kind of superhero type of movie. They’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":926,"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":[56,53,5],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-56","tag-frozen-2","tag-wicked"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/gettyimages-1149713640-h_2019.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-eV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","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=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}