FROM THE ARCHIVES: LONDON THEATRE DIRECT MEETS DANNII MINOGUE!

***Dannii Minogue* ***is a rarity. She is beautiful, confident and in control. With a willingness to diversify and take on new challenges, she is not scared of failure. Nor is she inexperienced at dealing with fame. Since beginning acting at the tender age of seven in popular Australian television series Skyways and The Sullivans, Dannii shot to fame alongside her sister Kylie Minogue singing and dancing on the show “Young Talent Time” Her break into mainstream television in the UK and Europe came when she took a role in the hugely successful soap opera “Home and Away.” It was off the back of this show that she launched a successful pop singing career, securing many top ten hits and awards in Australia, the UK and Japan. Since then she has completed a sell-out tour of Grease in Australia, performed with Earth, Wind and Fire in Japan and strutted here stuff twice onstage at the Sydney Mardi Gras. She surprised many when she took on the role of Lady Macbeth at the prestigious The Edinburgh Festival, in a production where she received rave reviews. Continuing to diversify, Dannii recently took over the role of Esmeralda in the London musical Notre-Dame de Paris, a role formerly occupied by another Australian starlet, Tina Arena. In an exclusive interview, **LondonTheatreDirect.com** talks to Dannii Minogue about her role in the Notre-Dame de Paris, her career, life and ambitions…* LTD: Hi Dannii. Thanks so much for meeting with us. What’s like performing as Esmeralda in Notre-Dame de Paris? What sort of experiences have you had and how do you feel about the role? Dannii: I wanted to take on the role because it was a challenge to me personally and professionally. It’s a good challenge. I think people would be surprised that I’d be in a show like this. And I really like the story. It’s a classic story. I think it’s still something that’s quite modern; the themes, the storylines – nothing’s changed. People are still pretty much the same. I generally in acting pieces go for the nasty character and I like to be the (takes on witch-like voice) Ha Ha Ha! Wicked witch. Like the last thing I did was play Lady Macbeth, up in the Edinburgh Festival. And in this one, I’m playing the sweet girl who doesn’t really know what affect she’s having on other people and how their sick and twisted love for her ends up getting her killed in the end. It’s really really tragic… seeing the purity of Quasimodo’s love for her. LTD: Aw, you’re a romantic, aren’t you? Dannii: Yes, I am! LTD: What similarities are there between Esmeralda and Dannii? Dannii: I think... I mean you always look for, you know, “what could be me in this character?” and she just does what she wants to do. She likes to see beauty in things even though there may not be beauty around her. She likes to be a really free spirit. I’ve always felt that that’s what I’ve done… LTD: Is that part of being an Australian? Dannii: Yeah, yeah. I think so, definitely. And very much an Aussie-girl thing where she, she’s actually quite placid. You know, there’s an old saying about step on a sleeping snake and (becomes snake) KSSSSS! And I’m very much like that. Very much. I don’t care who it is, on what authority, or whatever, I don’t like for things to be between right and wrong and if you feel something is wrong, and somebody is being nasty for no reason, it can really upset me. Those things, I really have the similarity. And other things too about Esmeralda. She just goes about doing her thing. She knows she’s got the power to seduce a man and to do her thing. I like that to. Typical girl! You know that you have this thing that you want to use sometime. LTD: Esmeralda is quite a demanding role. How did you prepare for it? Dannii: I did a lot of singing training with my singing teacher before the auditions and then after the auditions and before starting the show. Doing lots of very operatic vocal training because it’s a big range, what I have to sing in the show LTD: Was that fun, or just hard work? Dannii: No it’s good. Everybody…It’s such a dramatic piece that it can seem like that, but it’s a good cast, quite a young cast, For me, it’s fun. I wouldn’t have taken it on if it wasn’t going to be fun. I’ve got offered other West End shows before this and I didn’t want to do them. I’m not really into musicals. This is more like a Popera. LTD: Tell us more about Lady Macbeth, that’s another interesting choice of roles to take on. What made you make that choice and what did you learn from it? Dannii: Again, I wanted to do… because it was so different and so alien it was going to be such a challenge. I never even studied the book at school so I was just starting from such a fresh perspective, which was good. I don’t believe that… Shakespeare is a serious thing and it’s quite difficult to learn but it’s not impossible as a lot of people from the Royal Shakespearean Company (sic) would like to make you believe because they wanna protect their own jobs and their egos and everything. It’s not impossible to learn. Again, stories that can be told in a very modern way and people haven’t changed. Just getting across some similar things. She was great because she was completely evil. Completely. And I love that. I always wanna play the nasty character. If I was in a Disney thing, I’d be Cruella DeVille or someone like that (laughs) LTD: It’s a long way away from Grease, which you toured Australia with. Dannii: Yeah, and again, that in itself was completely different. We had the stage in the centre and we had ten thousand people around us and the stage revolved around. That was a big jump for me. This is another jump in a different direction. But that was really fun! Because the music for that is so up, you know it took us hours to calm down after the show (laughs again) And because we were on tour, we had the big suite in the hotel and we were like “Party!!” Going berserk! After two and a half hours of dance- I’ve never eaten so much food in my life! I was so thin. I’d come off the show and have a family-sized pizza… and fries! Ha ha ha! This one, it’s hard to come down after the show, but it’s not so difficult, because I’m not doing the dancing. It’s more just the vocal thing. But we’re always across the road having a drink after the show! Phew! LTD: How do the audiences compare between here and Australia? Dannii: I’d have to have done the same show in both places to compare, but I think generally, British crowds are more reserved. LTD: Are there any other West End shows you’d like to be in? Dannii: I haven’t seen a lot of stuff because, as I said, I’m not into the traditional musical thing. I did Grease because I grew up with that film… LTD: What about Mamma Mia? Dannii: I haven’t seen that. I’ve heard really really mixed reviews… LTD: It’s a great show! Dannii: OK, Now that I’m here I’m gonna take the time to see a few shows. LTD: How about your pop career? Have you any plans to release a new album? Dannii: I’ve got half an album, and while I’m in town over the next few months, I’ll be shopping around to record companies LTD: Have you been watching UK’s Popstars programme on television? Dannii: I’ve seen a couple of episodes! I love the whole thing. I’m just your general punter. You become addicted to it. It’s a love-hate thing…like a soap opera. LTD: Who do you rate musically at the moment? And who would you most like to collaborate with? Dannii: My favourite albums at the moment are Coldplay, Travis, Semisonic, mostly rock-based stuff. There’s a guy in Australia called Jimmy Barnes who I’d like to collaborate with – but nobody knows who he is over here! LTD: Who, in your opinion, is the Queen of Pop? Dannii: (Long pause) Madonna. It has to be really, doesn’t it? LTD: Are you constantly aware on the industry’s emphasis on beauty and image. Do you think it’s a bad thing? Dannii: I’ve sort of seen it from both sides. I’ve got friends who are models, and that’s just the way they are. They’re just incredibly skinny.. They grew up and had a really hard time in high school as being the geeky stick insects and being called all sorts of names. They can find something they can do that suits them. Of course you’re gonna get some girls that are gonna be that size and shape that are not really. I think there’s certain things where you’ve gotta be a certain size and shape and it’s always gonna look great on a magazine cover. LTD: You had a massive selling calendar in 1998 full of tastefully shot semi-nude shots of yourself. Is that something you regret now, or something you’d do again? Dannii: I don’t know! I tend to do things for a laugh and for the fun of it and sometimes just a one-off thing that you wanna do. I’m not sure if I’d do it again. I’ve not given it any thought. LTD: Would you do Playboy? Dannii: I’ve done Playboy in Australia, years ago. LTD: Do you regret it? Dannii: No. My philosophy in life is not to live in the past. I really don’t believe in regret. You’ve got to make your decisions. That’s how I was brought-up. You know, make your bed and lie in it! And be confident about the decisions you’re gonna make. I mean it wasn’t something I was pushed into doing. It was something that was offered to me and I though, yeah, why not? LTD: When you reach a low point in your career of life, what’s the one thing that keeps you out there? What keeps you going? Dannii: I love what I do. Unfortunately there’re a lot of things that come from that. The press saying unnecessary things that you have to deal with sometimes even if you don’t want to. I love what I do and I don’t know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t doing it. I’d be somewhere still involved in the music industry. LTD: You seem to receive more than your fair share of negative press. A recent interview with Marianne MacDonald in The Mail on Sunday turned out to be particularly nasty because she took a dislike to you. Do you get frustrated when people take your words out of context and make a snap decision about you? Dannii: There’s always gonna be people like that… who’ve written the article before they’ve met you. I never set out to impress everyone because you can’t. And I’m not setting out to be friends with everyone either. I do what I do and I’m honest about it. I say “Here I am. Take me for face value, if you like me or you don’t.” And I don’t expect everyone to like me. There are difficult situations that you can be put into sometimes with press and whatever their agendas are and whatever they wanna write in their headlines to sell their paper or magazine. Sometimes it’s pushing the limit… LTD: Does it make you more guarded as a person? Dannii: You’ve always gotta think about it and then you can make your own choice. But yeah, it’s always there! Grrrrrrrr! LTD: Is it hard when people seem more interested in probing your break-ups or trying to find animosity between you and your sister than they are in you and your career? Doesn’t it really p*ss you off? Dannii: It does p*ss me off, yeah. But I guess its just part of human nature. People just want to know. I mean I find myself looking at magazines going “Ah! Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt got married!” and this and that and you want to know “Are they having a baby?”…You wanna know! And so I can’t blame people for that. LTD: What is the biggest misconception about you? Dannii: (Long pause) I think that people assume that, after Kylie came over here that I just kind of followed her here and just copied the things she was doing. What people don’t realise is that we both started together in Australia doing the same thing. I mean Kylie does her thing and I do mine. And we both do different things. But I think people are starting to realise now that we are different, I think that after doing shows like this, people will start noticing. LTD: We know that you answer your fans’ questions on your official website, Dannii.com. Do you use the Internet yourself? Dannii: Not a great deal but I do shop online! LTD: Do you enjoy pop music? Is that something that you want to keep doing? Dannii: I love pop music. I love that scene, the whole thing. I want to be part of it. I like the fact that you can listen to a song, enjoy it, then just throw it in the bin after a few weeks. But then there’s some stuff that you just keep listening to. Look at The Immaculate Collection. I’m still listening to Into The Groove! So, yeah, I’m definitely going to keep on doing it. LTD: What can we expect from Dannii next year? Dannii: Ah! Who knows! Hopefully a new album. We’ll just have to wait and see… LondonTheatreDirect.com wish to thank Dannii for meeting us and wish her all the best for her run in Notre-Dame de Paris. This interview is copyright 2001 London Theatre Direct. If quoting from this article, please ensure you include a direct link back to the website.