• Faith: Judaism
• Career: Actress
• Birthday:  May 30, 1971

Idina Menzel is an actress and singer best known for originating the role of Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked and voicing Elsa in Disney’s Frozen franchise. Known for her powerful singing voice, Menzel has built a career spanning Broadway, film, television and music. Her signature performances include the songs “Defying Gravity” from Wicked and “Let It Go” from Frozen.

Idina Kim Mentzel was born May 30, 1971, in Manhattan, New York, to Helene Goldberg, a therapist, and Stuart Mentzel, a pajama salesman. She has a younger sister, Cara. Menzel spent part of her early childhood in New Jersey before her family settled in Syosset on Long Island, New York.

When Menzel was 15, her parents divorced. Around that time, she began working professionally as a singer at weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs. She continued performing at private events while studying drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1992. She later changed the spelling of her last name from Mentzel to Menzel to better reflect how her family pronounced it.

Menzel’s breakthrough came when she was cast as Maureen Johnson in the original production of Rent. The musical opened on Broadway in 1996, and her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Her biggest Broadway breakthrough followed in 2003 when she originated the role of Elphaba in Wicked, opposite Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda. Menzel won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. She later returned to Broadway in If/Then, earning another Tony nomination, and starred in the original musical Redwood.

Menzel also developed a successful screen career. She reprised her role as Maureen in the 2005 film adaptation of Rent and played Nancy Tremaine in Disney’s Enchanted and its sequel, Disenchanted. Her television work includes a recurring role as Shelby Corcoran on Glee.

In 2013, Menzel reached an even larger audience as the voice of Elsa in Disney’s animated film Frozen. Her performance of “Let It Go” became an international hit, and the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. She returned as Elsa in Frozen II and other Disney projects. Her film credits also include Uncut Gems, Cinderella and You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. She made a cameo appearance in the 2024 film adaptation of Wicked.

Menzel met actor Taye Diggs while they were appearing together in the original Broadway production of Rent. They married in 2003 and welcomed their son, Walker Nathaniel Diggs, in 2009. The couple separated in 2013 and finalized their divorce in 2014.

Menzel later began a relationship with actor Aaron Lohr, whom she had worked with on the 2005 film adaptation of Rent. They became engaged in 2016 and married in September 2017 in a ceremony at their home.

Idina Menzel's Religious Beliefs

Menzel is Jewish and was raised in a secular Jewish family. Her grandparents emigrated from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, and Jewish culture was part of her upbringing on Long Island. As a teenager, her work singing at bar and bat mitzvahs also connected her professional beginnings with Jewish traditions.

Menzel has described her Jewish identity as culturally important even though she does not consider herself particularly religious or observant. “I’m not very religious, but I’m very connected to my culture and tradition and have great pride in being Jewish,” she told Hadassah Magazine in 2025.

Menzel has said she attended Hebrew school for about two years as a child but eventually stopped going. She did not have a bat mitzvah and has acknowledged that she did not regularly attend synagogue or consistently observe Jewish holidays while growing up.

Despite that, Menzel has maintained a strong connection to Jewish history, identity and values. She has previously spoken about wanting her son to understand Jewish stories and history. While working on Redwood, which incorporates Jewish themes and teachings, Menzel said the experience deepened her appreciation for Judaism. She specifically cited concepts including tikkun olam, commonly associated with repairing the world, and bal tashchit, the Jewish principle against needless destruction, as ideas that encouraged her to think more about giving back, healing and forgiveness.