Idina Menzel on embracing your uniqueness
Everybody in some way or another can feel completely alienated and like an outcast… When you’re an artist usually you have to take risks and usually you have to put yourself on the line and go against the grain in order to be great and unique.
And then you sort of stand up for what you believe and are able to resist the negativity and things people will say to you. So that’s one aspect of Elphaba [her character in “Wicked”].
We women have this strength inside of us and yet we are taught to always sort of keep it down. If we’re too big or too angry or too bold or too beautiful or too talented, it can scare people. It might scare other women, it might scare men, whatever it is.
I sort of found in my life that I’ve taken a step back and made myself smaller in order to try to fit in. And that hasn’t worked. And we have to learn to kind of embrace what makes us unique, and embrace our strength and then if people don’t like it, ** it.
Idina Menzel [musicalschwartz.com interview] / photo at left [by Joan Marcus] - Idina Menzel [in her green makeup] and Kristin Chenoweth as Elphaba and Glinda in the Broadway musical “Wicked”
