Idina Menzel Admits She Struggles With Aging
Broadway veteran says, ‘It’s hard in this day and age with all the social media to feel relevant’
Idina Menzel, 53, is a Tony award–winning Broadway star, but she admits that she battles self-doubt and performance anxiety. As she prepares to hit the road on a musical tour, she told AARP, “I confide in my husband [Aaron Lohr] who’s my best friend, about all insecurities and neuroses, because I start to think, Oh, I don’t know, what am I offering the audience? And I don’t know, my voice isn’t as good anymore. And he says, ‘You do this every single time that you’re starting a new project.’ ” Her “Take Me or Leave Me” tour, kicking off July 19, will feature fan favorites from Wicked and Rent, plus newer songs from her recent dance album, Drama Queen. In our interview, she explains how she’s curating the new material, the challenges of parenting a teenager while on tour and how she’s coming to terms with the aging process.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you start conceptualizing a tour?
I start imagining and thinking about new songs and talking to my music director about arrangements and thinking about the band and what kind of instrumentation I want to have. A lot of dreaming about things. And also what I want to divulge — what kind of stories I want to tell that underscore the music.
How do you prepare for the challenges of a solo concert?
I prepare vocally. I’m pretty regimented about that. I build up to being able to be on stage for two hours and sing 20 songs and have fun with it and not feel exhausted vocally and physically. I have a coach I’ve had for over 30 years. I start to look at all the music with her and any of the pitfalls or parts of the songs that are more challenging and can tire me out if I don’t think about them technically right.
How do you juggle touring and parenthood? [Menzel has a 14-year-old son, Walker Nathaniel, with ex-husband, actor Taye Diggs, 53.]
Each tour is a different stage of my son’s life. In the beginning, I had a little baby on the road and I was breastfeeding, and two years from that, I had a toddler and I was fitting in children’s museums and the proper park to coincide with the city. Now he’s a teenager and probably just wants to bring a friend or two on the bus because that’s cool to be on a tour bus. I have to figure in: How often can I run home in between shows so I can make a basketball game or a parent-teacher conference or something? So that juggling has a lot to do with it.
Both you and your son’s father, Taye, can sing. Does Walker have a good voice?
I’m ashamed — well, not ashamed — I’m flabbergasted to tell you that I’ve not heard much of my son’s voice. I’ve heard very little. I’ve heard enough to know that he sings very much in tune and has a great ear, but he will not — ever since he was like 5 years old — he won’t let his dad or me hear him sing. It’s really such a disappointment, because I always say, “Come on, honey, just sing with me in the car. We can just harmonize, you don’t have to perform. Singing is fun.” But he’s so adamant about paving his own road, and I don’t want to push that. He’s an athlete, and he loves to dance. He’ll dance a lot in front of us, and he’s a super creative writer. When he came to see my show [the play Redwood] in La Jolla, [California], he said, “Mom, you know I can’t stand musicals, but this was really good.” I said, “Well, that’s good, because these musicals actually pay for a lot of the things that you like to do.”
You were already singing at weddings and bar mitzvahs when you were just a couple of years older than your son is now. What would you tell that 16-year-old wedding singer now?
It’s more what she tells me as a 53-year-old-woman. I look back and I remember her being so fearless and her having such faith and belief in who she was and what she was going to accomplish. That version of me knew deep down inside that her dreams were going to come true and that she deserved to be heard and had something special to offer. Not to say she wasn’t insecure about so many things, but the talent stuff, I believed in myself so much to the point that I would be standing up there at a microphone at some temple in Great Neck, Long Island, and I knew no one was listening to me, but I had this sense of saying, One day you’ll listen to me. The more successful you get in life, the further you can fall. … So I’d say, “I’m so proud of you. Keep believing in yourself.” And I probably would tell her, “Don’t care about what people think of you so much.” Which I still have not escaped. I don’t think I’ll ever not care what people think of me.
In a previous interview, you said turning 50 was difficult and that you’re fighting the aging process. Is that still true?
It depends on the day of the week. I read some interviews by other female performers that I love, and a lot of them will say, “Oh, I don’t care, I am embracing my smile lines and my wrinkles,” and I envy that. It’s hard for me. I love more of the wisdom I have about life and about keeping things in perspective and enjoying the moment and my creative process. All of those things are much better as a more mature woman. It’s just the aesthetic thing and seeing things sag. Also, it’s hard in this day and age with all the social media to feel relevant and that you still have something to offer and that you’re not always sort of behind. I’m always asking my son, when I say [something], “Is that totally uncool?” And then when I do say something I think is cool, then he’s like, “Mom, you can’t say that. That sounds ridiculous.”
Any dream projects on your list, or collaborators you’d still love to act or sing with?
I’d love to share the screen with a legendary actor that I can learn so much from. I’m listening to Barbra Streisand’s [My Name Is Barbra] book on Audible. I would love to work with her. I’d love her to direct something that I was in. I auditioned for something that Robert De Niro was doing, and I got close to getting that, and that would have been pretty incredible. I’ve always said that. And Bono or Sting. I guess I could think of some younger people, but hey, it’s AARP!
