I can sing 'Happy Birthday' to you in twelve different places, but one of them is going to make you feel a certain thing, maybe it's a vulnerability, maybe an innocence, maybe another way is sexy and soulful or bluesy whatever it is, but with singers, exploring keys, I think, is important.
— Idina Menzel
Who am I, if I'm not this singer with big high notes? I identify with my voice. But I'm more than just the acrobatics.
My story is so boring: Long Island Jewish parents take their daughters to Broadway.
I was once an extra in a Bruce Springsteen video where they did a live performance video at Tramps. I forget the name of the song.
I feel like I was born to do this... I started working professionally as soon as I could, doing weddings and things like that in high school, while everyone else was having keg parties. I just felt destined to do it and really committed and driven; it was something that just felt right all my life.
I used to be someone that needed nine hours of sleep; otherwise, I didn't think I was going to sound good when I sang, and I was very disciplined and anal about my preparation. When you become a parent, there just isn't that time, you know?
As much as I appreciate people putting me in the category of these very acrobatic belters, I feel like my strength is my... interpretation and my truthfulness with songs, and I don't want young people to think it's all about the high notes that they have to hit.
Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.
The cool thing is that, unlike film, the theatre roles for women get better and better as you get older.
'Rent,' for me, was a significant time in my life because it was my first break. It was my first professional job. I also met my husband in that cast, Taye Diggs.
I think I hid my singing talent from a lot of my friends at school because I didn't want to alienate anyone. If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off, when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique.
'Frozen' definitely isn't about a man, but about the relationship between two sisters. At different times in our lives we find ourselves either more connected to or disconnected from the people in our family, and I think audiences will really be able to relate to that.
I will never leave the theater. My heart is there, and I love being on stage 8 times a week.
For me, 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself, finding out who I was, learning the power I could have as a performer. And 'Wicked' was about harnessing all that strength.
As an artist, you have to express yourself. I make no excuses for my versatility. I grew up singing classical arias, but I love rock n' roll and jazz standards.
My favorite thing of all time is a New York City weekend when there's a blizzard. Everything gets really quiet, and everyone goes to the movies and the park.
I find that, maybe because I'm also a singer, I hear music in characters all the time, even if they don't sing. I hear what affects me in my heart.
I have the potential to be very strong and powerful, sometimes angry, sometimes passionate. I also can be shy and withhold that because I am afraid. I don't want to freak anybody out with my passion... So I struggle with that all the time.
You can't be the vulnerable, transparent, raw person required to be an artist, and then cover that stuff up and meet the world with some kind of armor on. It just doesn't go.
I love my husband very much. I knew it was real true love because I felt like I could be myself around that person. Your true, true innermost authentic self, the stuff you don't let anyone else see, if you can be that way with that person, I think that that's real love.
That's what I love about songwriting - that you can write something about your own experiences and think it's completely specific to you, and then people can take away a completely different meaning for themselves. I really love that. I think you've been successful at writing a song when it has a larger life than yourself.
It's hard to absorb and to allow all that attention and accolades for 'Rent' because the rest of the country doesn't know who we are. Once I walk out of the door of 'Rent,' and I'm on the subway, it doesn't matter. It's an exaggerated sense of fame.
The sky in Texas is the most amazing sky in the whole country, I think, like you can see more sky in Texas than you can see anywhere else in the world.
It's the face and the body and the thing that we hide inside that can keep us from the world, but my voice is my voice.
When I lived in London when I did 'Wicked' there, everyone told me the audiences might be much more reserved, but I found it was completely the opposite. They jumped to their feet sooner, even more enthusiastically than the New York audiences did, and they were just as warm and as enthusiastic and supportive as New York.
That experience with 'Rent' went by so fast. I was younger. I didn't even really know what opening night was. And now I'm thinking back on the times I went to Broadway as a kid and the excitement I felt... And I'm realizing that I'm actually a part of that, so I'm learning to take it in, 'cause so often I shrug it away.
I always like to sing barefoot.
With young people, I always say, 'You're not doing anyone any favours by withholding your power.' As women, we do that a lot because we are afraid of being misunderstood or perceived as too strong. But the older I'm getting, the more I realise you have to let that go.
I'm constantly trying to work on the person that I am and work on my shortcomings, and I guess I want people to know that it's ok to be a work in progress, as long as you keep trying to figure it out. But that search and that discovery is what makes life kind of rich, and it's what makes life rich... period.
The truth is I love musical theater and always have.
I'm more comfortable revealing myself than hiding behind metaphors. I respond to artists who reveal something of themselves.
Being a role model is about being true to myself.
Everything's always about being homogenized and following in a group. The people who stand out always have the most problems.
I keep saying, the older I get, the younger my audience gets. Because 'Wicked' and 'Rent' and 'Glee,' each one was a young audience, so it's a great thing to have, so then you know that as they get older and have kids, they'll maybe still buy tickets to my shows when I'm 80 and in Vegas!
For singers, I believe we can sing in a lot of keys. I know I have this big range, but the point is to find a key that emotionally connects people.
We are never doing anyone any favors by withholding our gifts from the world. It's scary to be fierce, but you can't compromise that for fear of losing those around you.
I definitely use my music to kind of alleviate my stress and get me through specific moments in time where I'm just being really tough on myself.
Along with enough sleep and taking proper supplements, I steam - in my steam shower. I find it's very healing, more than just your typical 'tea and honey.'
I pretty much have no life outside of the theatre. I go home every night, and I put the TV on, and I veg out and order food.
I've met so many of my idols, but the one person that has eluded me is Bono. But because he's done 'Spider-Man,' I keep thinking maybe, through a Broadway connection, somehow our paths will eventually merge.
Usually I'm pretty myopic. It's hard for me to multi-task, so to speak. If I'm in a show and I'm creating a character, I'm just completely into that. It's really hard for me to do anything else like write music. I have to sort of shut down different sides of my head and just focus.
The more success you get, you start to be harder on yourself or more afraid of the looking glass. You have to learn to build a thicker skin because people are paying more attention.
I don't think I ever really knew the right words to 'Hava Nagilah,' which isn't great for a Jewish singer.
Nerves are good. They keep you alive.
I tend to have a pattern of playing misunderstood characters.
I'm not great at multi-tasking, so when I do one thing... I like to do it 100%.
I'm smart enough to know to work with smart people.
All performers get on stage because they need to feel love from an audience. I might appear confident, but those three seconds before I get out there, I'm a mess. But I have to take the risk; otherwise, I'd be miserable and would feel like I wasn't seeing through my personal destiny.
My husband and I grew up with parents who supported our passion, and we're grateful to them for that. It really helps you find your identity when you're younger. It helps you become a really well-rounded person, the more you can show from different perspectives. The arts show us empathy, which is so important.
I think as women, the smarter and more powerful we are, the more it can be threatening and alienating to other people, more than with men. That's something we need to support each other with.
