I think I was born singing. I was always singing around the house as a child. I felt I had something special to share, though I didn’t exactly know what it was.
My parents were very supportive of my dreams to be a performer. My mum always wanted me not to worry about what people thought of me. I’ve sort of failed when it comes to that – you have to work really hard at not caring about what people think.
I wasn’t a kid actor. My mum wouldn’t let me work professionally until I graduated from high school and college. I did wedding singing as a teenager though, which was quite the education for a 16-year-old girl, going out into the world at night, working with a bunch of strange men on a bandstand. It helped define me as a vocalist – I sang so many genres of music. I learned how to emulate artists like Billie Holiday, Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin, and as a young woman you absorb their greatness through osmosis.
My first professional job was Rent. I was 25. When it started it was Off-Broadway – a little show at the New York Theatre Workshop in the Lower East Side. We had no idea what it would become. And then the producers came in one day and announced we were moving to Broadway. It had been a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl.
When you earn success and then are dropped from record labels, or all of a sudden you have to prove yourself in auditions again, find a new moment, you learn to really embrace the process and not take things for granted.
Frozen changed my life in so many ways. The film’s messaging resonated with young audiences. Through my character Elsa, I was thrown into being a role model for empowerment and self-esteem. I wanted to embrace that responsibility, while still having my own lessons to learn in my life. That has been something I love but also wrestle with.
When you’re singing Let It Go or even Defying Gravity in Wicked and you’re a woman that sometimes feels depressed or insecure about your own life, it feels hypocritical. I’ve wanted to make sure people understand that we all struggle, that you can’t always rise above – there are going to be days where it’s going to be really hard.
Becoming a mum gave me a new perspective. It rescued me from my own self-absorption. It made me less preoccupied with being perfect. Feeling like I had to hit every note perfectly on stage became an impossibility – if you’re up late with your kid because he has a fever, there’s nothing you can do about it. Now I get on stage and surrender.
Being in love is tricky. We learn that we need to make compromises in order to be a good partner. But we don’t want to compromise ourselves too much, lose too much of our own identity. When you strike that balance with a person, it’s special.
Singing at the Super Bowl and the Oscars were moments. If someone told me when I was a little girl that I’d be doing that, I’d have said, “No way!” I tried to take those moments in, to be present.
I’m fighting getting older. I look good in outfits because they’re sucking me in everywhere – I need to be sucked in. I’d love to say, “I love ageing so much.” But from a vanity aspect, it’s hard.
Idina Menzel’s new album, Drama Queen, is out now via BMG