After 'Rent,' I tried to make a record, and it didn't work out, and it was the Broadway community that welcomed me back. It's where I feel the most understood, most at home.
— Idina Menzel
I started singing weddings and bar mitzvahs at 15, lying about my age. It was a great discipline.
I set the bar high because I don't want to do just any other show just to keep working. I want to do something special that means something to people and speaks to them. Those kinds of opportunities don't come along all the time!
The most successful people are so original.
I have a wide spectrum, a wide demographic. I have the young girls, I have the gay community, I have many regular theatergoers. I do feel a tremendous responsibility and pride to be a role model for some of these young people.
As I get older, I realize all I've done is sing and act and hone those skills.
I'm trying to focus on original material. That is what I've had my luck with.
I sing in many different colors and, hopefully, they add up to a great performance that, after you leave the theater, makes you feel like I've really shared something of myself.
I think that if you're doing a new musical, you want to have the opportunity to experiment and try things without the whole city of critics looking over your shoulder.
I just enjoy being onstage and relating to the audience.
I used to take 40 minutes to warm up before going on stage. If you want to spend time with your child as well as having a career, you have to get up there even if your head's a mess. It's made me more relaxed, and I'm having some of my best shows.
My biggest project right now is trying to be a really great mom and learning how to balance family and career. I'm just trying to spend as much time with my family as I can.
My younger sister had kids before I did, and managed to earn a master's degree while raising them as a single parent. Now she's a brilliant second-grade teacher. I'm in awe of her ability to juggle everything and still be a great mother.
I'm a decent tennis player. Good backhand.
I know I'm known for singing some of those high notes, but that's really not what giving someone goosebumps is all about. It's about really trying to find what makes you unique.
I always use my husband's cocoa butter stuff. He has amazing skin!
I've been singing since I was born. It's something I do everywhere I go. In the shower, walking down the street. I don't need any impetus to do it. I just sing.
There has to be a balance between power and vulnerability. That's something I feel I have in my own life, something I struggle with and - on a good day - like about myself.
You get to relive your childhood when you have a baby and you see these toys and these books you read when you were little - the innocence that you are able to maintain because you have to find that again in order to connect with your child keeps you in a special state of mind.
I don't quite know how to put it into words, but I feel for the audience that I have; I know them.
I would love to play 'Funny Girl' or 'Evita,' but I idolize the women who have played those parts. I don't know if there needs to be another version of those shows.
A lot of my fans are young and hip and enjoy my pop album and know the lyrics to those songs as well, which is a real compliment to me.
There are lots of things I'm acquainting myself with now to be a more well-rounded person.
I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.
I love working with a cast and a group of people every day, which is different than recording because you're usually pretty isolated and alone. They serve as a good balance for each other.
I'm a mom - I'm lucky if I get to shower in the morning. Luckily, nail polish stays on my toes. I've been so bad on the upkeep, though.
Motherhood has helped me to stop overanalyzing things. It's been liberating because I used to be somewhat neurotic. I attribute that to having something bigger than myself.
People have these incredible expectations. So instead of being inspired by, say, Joni Mitchell's music, I look at it and say to myself, 'I'm going to quit - why would I think of writing or performing after listening to that?'
Everybody thinks it's going to be so glamorous, so cool, you're on 'Glee,' you know, a hit show or whatever.
I would love to work with Matt Damon.
I would like to get another job in London or tour there. I miss my friends.
I always like to sing barefoot, but when I first started doing these dates with the symphonies, I of course thought I should clean up my act, being a Jewish girl from Long Island with a little bit of a trucker mouth. So I wore a gown and some high heels.
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.
If I want to tuck my son into bed and read him a story, but that means I have to take a red-eye to get to a concert - which I would never think of doing otherwise - that's just the way it is. Even if I can't hit the note that night, I got to tuck my child in!
Barbra Streisand, for one, is one of my idols. I've listened to her since I was a little kid - the first album I ever bought was 'A Star is Born' with Kris Kristofferson.
I will never leave the theater. My heart is there and I love being on stage eight times a week.
I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.
For me, 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself, finding out who I was, learning the power I could have as a performer.
I wish I had read more and majored in literature rather than theatre. I think I would have been a better artist for it. I am trying to play catch-up now.
Believe me, I don't take that lightly. To have struck gold twice with 'Rent' and 'Wicked.' I know it's rare and I'm very lucky to have that kind of phenomenon in my life. They're not just great shows, they're shows that resonate with young audiences.
Growing up I studied classically and did lots of shows in school.
The intensity of being in front of all these incredible musicians and tremendous conductors in these elaborate halls can be overwhelming.
It's been a dream of mine to run my own summer camp. I went to one as a kid, and I put on productions, and got lots of confidence.
I'd been a wedding singer through college, but after a few years of doing my best renditions of jazz standards to clinking glasses and the sound of forks on salad, I thought, 'Oh God, if this is all I do, I'll never be able to live with myself.'
The first album I ever owned was 'A Star is Born.'
I'd love to open a camp focusing on the arts accessible to kids from all income brackets.
They're always so serious, the orchestras, you know? It's always a fun contrast of that song and the genre of music. And me.
As a mom, I don't have much time for beauty.
Things happen for a reason, and in their own time.
