Interview with Idina Menzel
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Idina Menzel
Singer and actress who originated Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked, winning a Tony Award for Wicked, and voiced Elsa in Disney's Frozen.
Source: Broadwaycom on YouTube
These answers are taken from Show People With Paul Wontorek Interview: Idina Menzel of "If/Then" & "Frozen" on Broadwaycom's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
What do you enjoy most about singing?
I've just had really good luck. I'm very grateful to have been in Rent and Wicked, where I was involved from early stages, and it's a process that is just so rewarding for the performer, to be involved so early on and to be a fly on the wall while everybody's working. Well, I guess I'm not a fly on the wall. I'm involved, I'm trying to inspire, but sometimes it feels like that.
All of our favorite musicals of all time were all new at one time, and not all of them were universally accepted. Those are usually the ones that are the most special, that push the envelope.
What was a great moment for you as a singer?
It's a total dream come true. I'm a Long Island girl, went to NYU. All the women, all the artists I've revered growing up, I've gone to see at Radio City. And I have those moments all the time now. That's one good thing about getting older: you know how to appreciate where you are and how lucky you are.
How did your career as a singer unfold?
I always wanted to record my own music and sing rock and roll, and so the Rent phase afforded me a record deal, which I'd been trying to get ever since I was 16 years old. So I went off and did that, but got dropped from the record label. I turned my nose up to television a little bit at the time. I thought, I just want to go on the road and play my music. And then if that doesn't happen, you sort of have to start over, because Wicked was many years after Rent.
Michael Greif gave me my first job in Rent, and for years after that we always wanted to work together and kept seeking out things. This whole creative experience with him has been just a beautiful thing. We enjoyed each other, having Anthony there, and we were always pinching ourselves and keeping it real and saying, we're doing another Broadway show, the three of us.
What advice do you have for new singers?
You just got to be in it to win it. You got to keep working, and keep working with people you believe in, and just stay afloat, and then things happen. You go through experiences, just like in If/Then, and they don't make any sense, and you say, where is this taking me? This has made no sense in my scheme of things in life, why am I experiencing this? And then all of a sudden, years later, someone comes back around.
Tell me something I may not know from reading your credits.
Most people call me Eye-deena if they knew me before college, because back on Long Island everyone said that. My mom always said your name is Idina, with a short i, but for some reason I didn't have enough confidence in myself to correct people. So now if somebody calls me that on the street, I know where they're from. And then it's funny that it came full circle, and my name got totally screwed up, and I had to sit there and not be able to correct it, because it was in front of the world.
I have a recurring show dream. Years later, the girl and the understudy are sick, they have nobody to cover, and they call me, and I assume of course I remember it. I did it for how long, I went to London. And of course I get there and I don't know how to do the makeup. It's always about the makeup. And then I'm on some stage that's not the Gershwin at all. It's some really haunted house version of a stage. I have that all the time.
What are some of your professional goals for the future?
I just want to keep doing that. I'm not saying I'll never do a revival, but I just want to make sure I'm always involved in something where people are really trying to be fresh and forward thinking.
I'm lucky, because when I'm 80 maybe I'll always have a job, because these generations keep regenerating and bringing their kids, and I won't be stuck in Vegas somewhere, off the side bar lounge, singing Defying Gravity with green smoke in a cheap room.
Idina Menzel's Full Biography
Idina Menzel was born on May 30, 1971 in New York City, New York as Idina Kim Mentzel. She's an American actress, singer & songwriter. She's best known as Maureen in Rent, Elphaba in Wicked & the voice of Elsa in Frozen (2013). Her mother Helene Goldberg was a therapist & her father Stuart Mentzel was a pajama salesman. Her grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Russia. She grew up in New Jersey & on Long Island. At 15, she started to work as a wedding & bar mitzvah singer. She attended Syosset High School & graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts w/ a degree in drama in 1992.
In 1996, she debuted in theater, originating the role of Maureen in Rent, which went from Off-Broadway to Broadway. This role also got Menzel her 1st Tony nomination. In 1998, she released her 1st album Still I Can't Be Still. She made her movie debut in 2001 when she played a minor role in Kissing Jessica Stein (2001). In 2003, she became 1 of the most popular Broadway performers when she originated the role of Elphaba in Wicked. This role brought her not only huge popularity & acclaim, but also a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.
In 2005, she appeared in the Off-Broadway musical See What I Wanna See, earning Drama Desk Award & Drama League Award nominations. The same year, she reprised the role of Maureen in the movie adaptation of Rent (2005). In 2007, she appeared in Enchanted (2007). In 2013, she received another Tony nomination for her performance in If/Then. She voiced Elsa for the 1st time in Frozen (2013), a role she often reprises for sequels & tie-ins. In addition to theater, movie & TV appearances, she regularly releases new music & goes on tour.