Years after \u201cFrozen\u201d came out, some of us still can\u2019t walk through our home without accidentally prompting \u201cLet it Go\u201d to erupt from some unseen toy.<\/p>\n
Elsa never really left us. But she\u2019s back.<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t already been informed by some young girl (or boy) in your life, \u201cFrozen 2\u201d will be unleashed in theaters on Nov. 22, six years after the original amassed $1.2 billion in worldwide ticket sales (a record for an animated film), sent the name \u201cElsa\u201d skyrocketing up popular baby name lists and ingrained the lyrics of \u201cLet it Go\u201d on the collective consciousness of humankind.<\/p>\n
To reflect on Elsa\u2019s journey ahead of the release of \u201cFrozen 2,\u201d The Associated Press assembled the two women most responsible for her creation: Jennifer Lee, co-director and writer of each film, and Idina Menzel, the Tony-winning actress who gives the ice queen her clarion voice.<\/p>\n
Elsa was initially designed as the villain of \u201cFrozen\u201d but was reshaped as a new kind of Disney princess: fiercely independent, magically powerful and humanly flawed. She has ever since been a beacon of female empowerment to millions of young girls \u2014 and, as they explained, to Menzel and Lee, too.<\/p>\n
AP: How does it feel to have created the most powerful thing known to man?<\/p>\n
Menzel: (Laughs) I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve created the most powerful thing known to man, but it\u2019s nice to know we created something that resonates so strongly and beautifully within young people.<\/p>\n
Lee: For (co-director Chris Buck) and I, everyday we\u2019re still surprised. We always ask the question of \u201cWhy?\u201d and there\u2019s not a single answer.<\/p>\n
AP: But why do you think \u201cFrozen\u201d has so resonated? After watching it a few hundred times, I\u2019d say its power is predicated on its portrait of sisterhood and a young woman coming to terms \u2014 letting out \u2014 her talent.<\/p>\n
Lee: They had flaws. They were messy and real. They were misunderstood and they were alone at times. But they had in this journey a perseverance and looked out for each other. To me, it\u2019s not trying to be perfect or polished. It\u2019s trying to connect with real experiences and real emotion.<\/p>\n
Menzel: It\u2019s so refreshing that a man is not the answer to their problems. It\u2019s (Anna and Elsa\u2019s) relationship to one another, seeing the love affair of these two sisters. That\u2019s unique to most films in general and especially in a Disney movie.<\/p>\n
AP: Idina, how would you describe your relationship with Elsa?<\/p>\n
Idina: It\u2019s funny. The character has sort of catapulted me to be a role model for young girls and boys. Yet I\u2019m a woman in her 40s who still has to remind herself of her own power and pick herself up every day and figure out how I want to tackle the day and approach my life. I have to sing her songs and say her words all the time. It\u2019s a constant reminder to walk the walk and talk the talk and love myself, and love my vulnerabilities and my idiosyncrasies and everything that I am. And to understand that what makes me different and unique is what makes me powerful and beautiful.<\/p>\n
AP: You were both very successful before \u201cFrozen\u201d but your lives have been changed by it. Jennifer has since become the head of Disney Animation.<\/p>\n
Lee: What \u201cFrozen\u201d did for me is that it opened doors. As a woman in Hollywood, it\u2019s all about access. I was given a chance on \u201cFrozen\u201d and because of \u201cFrozen,\u201d the doors were opened. Having those opened doors makes you take more chances.<\/p>\n
AP: \u201cFrozen\u201d is the highest-grossing film worldwide directed by a woman, a record \u201cFrozen 2\u2033 is likely to surpass. Is that a meaningful mark to you?<\/p>\n
Lee: It\u2019s a surprising mark for me. I didn\u2019t know any of these statistics when I came into the industry. I sort of naively just said I want to make movies and didn\u2019t realize that I would be the first woman of certain things. I\u2019m hoping that all changes. I\u2019ll be the first in some of these but I can see a huge change happening where women are directing more.<\/p>\n
AP: Idina, what did you think about becoming Elsa again?<\/p>\n
Menzel: I hadn\u2019t stopped being Elsa because I had been on the road and singing all over the world and would close my show with \u201cLet It Go\u201d now. It\u2019s the biggest song I had in my repertoire. It\u2019s the first time I had sort of a hit song. Being from Broadway, you have songs people know and love but they\u2019re not necessarily \u201chits.\u201d Singing it in different languages all over the world and it being this conduit to kids in my audience. Not just kids, actually. A wide demographic of people actually like the song, whether they admit it or not. (laughs)<\/p>\n
AP: You\u2019ve sung \u201cLet it Go\u201d in other languages?<\/p>\n
Menzel: I have. I can do Japanese. I once tried Dutch, which was horrible. I wrote it out phonetically and they\u2019ll probably never have me back there. But I at least tried.<\/p>\n
AP: It took some soul searching to initiate plans for a sequel. What kick-started it?<\/p>\n
Lee: We weren\u2019t thinking about a sequel at all. About a year after the film came out, our producer Peter Del Vecho had been traveling and came back with messages from around the world. He was trying to understand what it was about Elsa and \u201cLet it Go.\u201d The feedback was that she\u2019s freeing for people who feel a lot of pressure, for people who feel misunderstood \u2014 someone who carries our pain and sets us free. And every one of them asked: Why does she have powers? Chris and I looked at each other and said: \u201cThere\u2019s still more of this story.\u201d<\/p>\n
AP: What should fans expect in \u201cFrozen 2\u201d?<\/p>\n
Lee: At the end of the day, this film is still about two sisters. Life throws you curve balls post-Happily Ever After \u2014 how you cope and a family struggling to stay together. They\u2019re all changing \u2014 even Olaf!<\/p>\n
Menzel: Elsa and Anna push each other and make each other rise to new levels. They evolve and through this journey they become the most gorgeous women they can be. They both find themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Years after \u201cFrozen\u201d came out, some of us still can\u2019t walk through our home without accidentally prompting \u201cLet it Go\u201d to erupt from some unseen toy. Elsa never really left us. But she\u2019s back. If you haven\u2019t already been informed by some young girl (or boy) in your […]<\/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":[56,53],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-56","tag-frozen-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-f1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","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=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":932,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}