Miley Cyrus - 'Avatar: Fire and Ash'

This podcast is brought to you by Netflix, presenting Jay Kelly, filmed by Academy Award nominee Noah Bombach. George Clooney stars as Jay Kelly, a famous movie actor who embarks on a relationship of self-discovery confronting his past and present, as he reflects on not only his career, but his relationships with his father, his daughters, and his devoted team, led by his manager played by Adam Sandler. Yellow Times Raves, Jay Kelly is a fully-formed knockout, and awards watch hails it as one of the best films of the year, available on Netflix for your awards consideration. Hi everyone and thank you for tuning into the 616th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter Podcasts on the host Scott Feinberg, and my guest today is a singer-songwriter and actress, who has been described by Billboard as a generational talent, and the 15th greatest pop star of the 21st century. By the New York Times as one of pop's reigning female queens, and by the BBC as the ultimate 21st century pop star. Twice named, one of times 100 most influential people in the world, she is also a two-time Grammy winner who is behind 6 songs that have been streamed more than a billion times on Spotify, has had 13 singles that cracked the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, two of which went to number 1, has had 15 albums that cracked the top 10 of the Billboard 200, five of which went to number 1, and is now in serious contention for an Oscar nomination, for Best Original Song, for Dream Is One, an original song that she co-wrote with Simon Franklin, Mark Ronson, and Andrew Wyatt, for James Cameron's Avatar, Fire, and Ash. Miley Cyrus, over the course of a conversation at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, which took place just moments after Cyrus confirmed that she and Max Marondo had gotten engaged, the 33-year-old and I discussed her path to and journey through Child Start 'em on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana, juggling multiple identities both on her TV show and in real life, as she began releasing albums, the backstories of her best-known songs, and of the various controversies in which she has found herself during what the Los Angeles Times once described as her weird, winding one-of-one career, how she came to Avatar, Fire, and Ash, and what the creative process was that led to Dream Is One, plus much more, and so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. ♪ Every time I pray, it's a song to give this love alive ♪ ♪ I know when we dream, we dream as long ♪ ♪ I know when we dream, we dream as one ♪ Thank you so much for doing this, and also I've been just briefed that congratulations over in order. Thank you very much. Anyway, with this podcast, we go back through as much as one Canon an hour, the major moments in each guest's life and career, and so the place we always begin is where the guest was born and raised and what their folks did for a living. Man, you really do the whole thing. We do it, we do it. Good part is, I think many listeners will have the broad outlines of that for you, but maybe just for the record, if you wouldn't mind. Of course, I am from Nashville, Tennessee, born and raised up until I was a teenager, and then I moved as a teenager to Los Angeles, California, where we are today to do exactly what we're doing. Exactly, and your folks? My mother's name is Tish Cyrus, and she's also from the same place my dad's from, who's Billy Ray Cyrus, who is from Kentucky. And now I know, of course, he was singer-songwriter, but prepping for this, I read that your mom was kind of on the track to be a performer too, to an extent, right? She more than anything, which I guess it's a level of performance. My mom actually wanted to be a flight attendant, and now my mom is absolutely terrified and doesn't travel with me anymore because she's afraid to fly, but she was a dancer. She was kind of more performative in that way, but she always had too much stage fright to ever actually kind of do the whole thing. Got it. Well, one of the last just kind of Wikipedia, a bowl, just, you know, top of the Wikipedia type things are, you were not born Miley Cyrus. I don't think it was until 2008 that that legally became the case, so who did you start out as, and why did the change? Well, I was born as Destiny Hope, and it was my dad's premonition that it would be my destiny to bring hope to the world, which he hopefully was right. At some point, I would think that by involving myself and things like, you know, Avatar that have a greater message beyond just kind of entertaining us for a couple hours, I would hope that that would have kind of come to fruition. But I changed my name when I was in second grade, and that was because in school, it was way too confusing, and, you know, of course they probably didn't have the tightest attention span anyways. I was creative people don't always, but I wasn't always answering when I was being called because I never got called Destiny at home. It was always Miley from the time I was two days old. My dad started calling me Smiley Miley. There was a whole little riddle that went with it and everything. So, yeah, so I, in the second grade, changed my name then, and then kind of professionally, that's all I ever known as, and all I would ever answer to. Your birth was at a time when your dad was touring a lot, right? You said at one point that you grew up on a tour bus. It seems like he and you both made it up being on the road, a kind of a fun adventure and things, but like, you know, what's that like? Most people don't have that experience. Well, I think it was probably, it's probably my attraction and my version to touring because growing up with it, it's all I ever knew. So, of course, that being a part of my life wouldn't have, it would have just felt like second nature. But then actually doing it for myself, I realized that at some point I, you know, I said it when you're when I was little, it was kind of like a playground. And then later it started feeling more like a battleground because you see really how much it puts the physical body through mentally, emotionally, it's just, it's one of probably, for me, it's pretty isolating, you know, you're seeing thousands of thousands of people. But then you're also getting on a tour bus and it's just you at one. So the fall at night is a really a big drop. And so, yeah, because it's all I ever knew, I think it made me feel really comfortable. But when it's you and not your dad, it's something else. Now, one of the other things I came across was that even once your own career was going and you were, you had your own bus and all that. Obviously, people are booking hotel rooms and stuff for you, but you were saying you chose to sleep on the bus? Yes, because it's truly all I knew. So I was always more comfortable on the bus than I was at somewhere, you know, we're now at the lovely four seasons. And they would book me hotels at places nice like this and I would go in shower in the locker room at the venues because that's really just that for me getting the sleep, getting the rest was more important than waking up at four o'clock in the morning and people listening might not know why you would wake up at four o'clock in the morning. That's because you're driving to the next city, you might get there by the time you check in, it's in the middle of the night and now you've already disrupted yourself and you've got so much to do that night, you know, 10,000 or more people to perform for. Yeah, and I guess the other thing that happens is when you're growing up on the road, whether it's with your dad's crew or your own, that sort of becomes your, sorry, get family, right? You've said that for years and years and years, I think from time you were 12 on the people that you were on the road with and you're, I guess you're, you know, band members and whoever else, it was pretty consistently the same people, right? Yeah, and has been throughout my life, I started working with the band when I was 12 and I'm 33 now, so we've worked together for a long time and they have become that chosen family, which is something that, you know, out of avatar that I'm here supporting today. It actually kind of kept resonating with me as I was watching the film, I kind of, you know, because me and my family that we share blood, we're really close, but there's people that, you know, that you choose that, and that choose you. Yeah, it's a totally different kind of bond, probably in something in the decision of, you know, I don't love you because I have to, because I want to. Right, right. Well, how early on did people notice that maybe you were singing more than your normal kid or that you were a little more appealing to listen to singing than your normal kid? Just you remember when that started and also when that evolved into not just singing other people's stuff, but also writing some of your. Yeah, when I first started kind of learning how to, you know, walk, I think I was turning it into a performance of some sort, you know, I would crawl up on our coffee table if I could and do a song. My dad was really constantly encouraging this and a lot of the time putting me on camera, you know, as dads do, he would put me on tape and then the thing that I loved was, I guess he would, you know, put the VHS that he had made back into the screen and I would watch myself and I really got a kick out of it when I was little. I think I really liked seeing myself on TV and I liked performing for people and, you know, everyone really kind of encouraged it, you know, besides I remember my brother, I used to love to sing like, you know, Annie, I would sing tomorrow. I was in the shower and a lot of the time we would share a room and everyone enjoyed it besides him who every day heard tomorrow on repeat. Now, from the beginning, there was always a bit of a deeper voice than most people. Yeah, my dad used to be really good friends with Wayland Jennings who would come over and tell my dad to stop giving me cigarettes and I always had, yeah, a raspy voice, but it's definitely aged. I always think of voices as kind of like a pair of shoes, we use them so much. They also translate kind of everything that we feel, it's that little thing in between your mind and your heart. And it's, it's interesting to kind of again, align it with avatar is what I love about it is you can really see the heart, but also the imagination because there's the emotion and there's also the dream of it. But our voice is the thing that kind of bridges what we feel in our heart and what we know in our mind to be true and it kind of hopefully it aligns those two things and balances those two things. So, my understanding is that a really important thing was when your dad started on this TV show that was shooting in Toronto called Doc. So, you would have still been not even a teen of course. Yeah, it wasn't a teenager, yeah. So, the family goes with him, is this the first time you're really seeing him act or seeing anyone act up close? No, when I was really young, I, you know, my dad, I can't remember what came first. So, I'm guessing it Mahal and Drive, my dad was a Mahal and Drive and he came out to audition for that and I came with him and I even waited in the car while he was auditioning for David Lynch, which is another funny story. You know, my dad did some other acting and I would always go with him and I would always sit in the director's chairs and sit with the director and kind of watch the whole magic happen and I always just wanted to be a part of myself. And with Doc, that was when it happened for you for the first time that they would put you into an actual TV program? Yeah, because, well, Toronto has a lot of theater, a lot of, you know, obviously so much films there. So, I got an acting coach and he was really in to helping me out and he kind of helped me get a little agent and then I kind of just kept booking little things like a baked bean commercial and then it became a timber and movie and I had a couple lines in that. And yeah, I would just, you know, take little things that my mom could get to. We had five, six brothers and sisters, so there's five without me. And so squeezing everybody in was, you know, she wanted everybody's goals to feel prioritized, but I kept her busy for sure. What do you think it was about acting at that stage, obviously things evolved and changed, but like, what do you think you were gravitating towards? You know, I don't know exactly what this means, but I guess it was the reaction from other people, which is funny because now I don't really think about other people quite as much as I did, but when I was younger, I really like to see, and I still do. I really like to see people laugh at my jokes. I like to see people, you know, tear up if I'm doing an emotional scene. I like watching the way that people react to what I'm doing. Yeah, and obviously you get that instant feedback that people talk about from theater when you're performing live, I guess, music. Yeah, and the same thing with like a live studio audience, you know, with Hannah Montana, we actually had a live audience, so watching people laugh in real time, hearing the ooze and the a's, that's kind of the thing I liked about it the most. So for anyone living under a rock or I guess at the wrong age, Hannah Montana, this is 2006 to 2011, half hour, it's a common Disney Channel. [Music] Your Miley Stewart, a Burnett by day, regular kid by day, and then Hannah Montana with a blonde wig pop star by night. Again, I understand there's these small things like big fish and other projects that you were doing before that, but like, where do you even first hear that there was going to be a project like this? And why was it the case if this is correct that when you first heard about it, your dad who had obviously been supportive about generally of you doing things you're interested in, but it sounds like he was discouraging you for that one. Yeah, I think, you know, my dad knows that with this industry comes a lot of heartache, heartbreak, a lot of nose. I know there's a lot more nose than yeses, and I had gotten, you know, enough nose to kind of know that at the time. And I had auditioned for a bunch of things that I didn't get, and I think my dad just wanted to kind of protect me from that, but I also think he probably knew that once you get on, it's hard to get off. And if I was going to take off, then I was probably going to never come back down and did I have the awareness at 12 years old to make a commitment to that kind of lifestyle. And so I think it came out of protection and also came out of kind of fear for me from his own experience. But yes, I first found out about it funny enough, another mom was talking to my mom about it at cheerleading. She said, oh, I got to leave town. We have to go to LA. My daughter is going to audition for this Disney show and my mom's like, well, what is it because I want my lead to do that. That was a bad deal. That was a bad conversation on her end. Well, good deal for me. Yeah, and I guess though, people should also understand because it's a lot of things have to happen for any of us to end up where we end up in your case, though, believe it's the case that when you first came out, and we're talking about, so this would have been like during pilot season, right? The part you were auditioning for was not the, or that you were initially pursuing was not the lead that ended up, first of all, the lead wasn't my lead, right? But who were you going out for? Well, at first I was auditioning for the best friend, Lily Chuscott, and to eventually be played by Emily Osment, but I was auditioning for the role of the best friend, and they asked me to audition for Chloe, who was the Miley character before I got the role. They actually sent me back. They cast at Hannah completely. They actually filmed the pilot without me in a whole other cast. I didn't know that. Yeah, and then I was sad. I went back home, but I was able to put it in a good perspective like, oh, I don't have to leave school, and I'll have to leave my friends, and that was going to be a lot from my whole family. And so I forgot all about it, and then I went back home, and I did a whole another year of school, went back to sixth grade, and then they called me at the very end of sixth grade, and said, would you put yourself on tape again? I did, and I came back out to LA, came back out to LA one more time. I just want to interject if I can't start in real quick. What I've read from the people who I guess were at Disney at the time was that you also did something that you were passionate enough, I guess, still to bring yourself back out there. Other people were, I guess, unable and willing, whatever it was, but you would let me fly back out for another chance. Yeah, I think at some point, a lot of the times, too, obviously, my family had the means to do it. I could fly back out, which was a big blessing just to get that kind of jump start in. But I more than anything, I really wanted it. So I would backpack off other people going to LA, like my aunt would come out to LA all the time and bring my cousins. And I would kind of say, well, couldn't I just go with you? And you guys have a hotel anyways, and I'll just, I'll bunk with my cousin or whatever. And so I would just kind of backpack. And then the thing that I was most excited about, which is totally crazy, was my grandma used to let me go to Panda Express and get Pepsi and White Rice. And I only want to come out to LA with my grandma because she would let me do all the crazy things that grandma's let you do that your parents want. So I didn't even care necessarily like, oh, I'm going to come out and be on Disney. I was like, I just want to get on that airplane so I can go get Pepsi and Panda Express. That's hilarious. Okay. So as you were, I guess 11 when you first heard about it, right? 13 when they finally cast you. Yeah. How do you remember how you turned 13 on set? It was our first episode from the pilot. Our very first episode. Okay. So before 13 then even just because it was such a like life changing moment, do you remember where you were, what, how you found out and how big a deal that was? I definitely do because I had just gotten braces. And I was like, oh my god, now I'm going to pick the braces off. And we were like, we're going to go back to LA. I mean, I was so young. I barely had teeth. I had like four or five teeth and the five teeth. I did have had braces on them. And I came back to LA and everyone's like, wait, you look completely different than you did two months ago, but that's what happens when you hire someone. It's 11. It's like all of a sudden you start breaking out. You're losing teeth. I'm like, I'm totally doing the thing that awkward teenage things happen. So that was kind of the deal. But yes, I at 11, I was auditioning 12. We shot the pilot. I waited throughout 12. And then once we got picked up, but the show wasn't still out. I turned 13 on set. And was it a phone call, though, or what was the? Oh, so I do remember I was sitting my like mom's office was in our laundry room. And I remember I think I was I was upset because my braces were hurting me. And you know, I was like, I want to get the brain soft and my agent called and she goes, just shy. She might be about Hannah. And I think my agent even said, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think she kind of tricked us and said, well, I don't know what to tell you, but she got the bar. And my mom was freaking out. And then it comes into the logistics of the parents going, okay, now I've got to uproot the whole family. We have to move and all those kinds of things. That's really what happened, right? The whole crew came out to LA. Yeah. And what was the shooting schedule like for those years? That was the intense part. That was the part that I think now as an adult, I, you know, I managed my schedule in a much different way because at the time I didn't, we didn't know better. I just thought this is kind of what it is. And it is what it is for the most part. It's why I've been so choosy about the, you know, what I choose to do has to really be important to me or the effort is just so intense. I was doing school for four hours a day. So it's compacting what you usually get, you know, a kid goes to school for seven hours, but you get to play. You go to lunch, you hang out with friends. They've had in that time for you to kind of mess around and we didn't really have that time. So doing the school. So it was pretty much doing like a 12 hour day every day, Monday through Friday. And then on the weekends, I was performing as Miley Cyrus because I wanted to build that at the same time. You were thinking about that from the beginning or out season one. I think, you know, what happened is the show came out and it hadn't even actually come out yet. They ran a commercial during high school musical and I went again with my aunt somewhere the next day and someone asked me for my autograph and I was hooked. I was like, all right, I like this. I want more of that. And right. And then they asked me as Miley Cyrus, you know, and I signed it and they didn't really, the show wasn't even out yet. It was just commercial. Right. Interesting. So when it did debut, which I believe the first, well, it were really almost exactly 20 years from the first episode, when it went on the air. It pretty quickly. It seems like how to huge following. I think it was averaging 2 million viewers. Then for the August 17, 20, 07 episode. I was looking at the most watch series telecasting basic cable history 10.7 million viewers for program aimed at kids. It was amazing. Do you remember grasping at the time, just like how giant this thing was that you were absolutely not even now. I'm like, huh, really? Like I had no idea. I just was the same person that I am now that was just people are really loving this. I love the way it's making people feel. I love waking up every day and having a purpose and having a job to do. I'm a little bit like a workhorse like that. I like to wake up with a full plate and then look at the end of the day and it's empty. I love that. I just really had my I really have always kind of been really focused on kind of the two things. Like what it means to me, the heart part of it. And I guess the heart in the mind. It's like my heart loves the feeling I get by making something that people love and my mind loves the idea of doing something every day that's challenging. It is interesting, isn't it, that like so the show you've got the one person living one way and then the other character and then you know now the show goes out and you're yourself having this thing of like Miley Stewart and Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana, the whole thing because I mean even in terms of the charts. I was looking at the various billboards that's and first they were you know one of the articles noted that there have been very very few people who have entered the charts multiple times under two different names. You were getting you were making the charts as Hannah Montana and as Miley Cyrus and I guess putting out your records through different so Walt Disney records for Hannah Montana stuff Hollywood records for Miley stuff. And then we have first of all during the shows run 20 tracks make the billboard hot 100 most of those are I guess that's you know Hannah Montana stuff but and the first soundtrack album 2006 Hannah Montana the album number one on the billboard 200 the first TV soundtrack ever to debut at number one. But then a year later 2007 and I guess this must have been a not a coincidence like somebody you guys must have thought through this or I don't know I'd love to know but like the it was a dual soundtrack right so you have Hannah Montana to and meet Miley Cyrus on the same thing. I can't take credit that was my mom's idea really good idea so I loved being Hannah but I wanted to be Miley I wanted to start building that and I was getting a little bit older so I was getting more of a sense of self and identity and. It was becoming more and more almost you know where Miley Cyrus I wasn't quite a Miley Stewart because people knew who I was and so I lost the privacy that Miley Stewart really protects but I had the fame but I didn't have the identity people just thought of me as Hannah. And so I started writing music anyways it was actually the first time I'd ever got my heart broken I was you know telling my mom the things that teenage girls do which is like I'm never going to leave like leave my room again I'm depressed and then she goes okay we've got it like I do now we've got to turn this into art we've got to use this to create and my mom literally found a producer that was willing to work with Miley Cyrus because Miley Cyrus hadn't done anything yet and funny enough which we'll get to later as we go down the kind of order of the life. But it was Matthew Wilder who owned the Ramirez Canyon House which I later later moved into and it burned to the ground but I didn't know when I moved into that house because I was so young I didn't remember that it was the house that I had originally done my very first. Album at which was the album was really about my first heartbreak and that was the heartbreak of a lifetime so the first song I wrote for that album was called Girls Night Out that was the very very first song I did for Miley Cyrus. Oh my gosh okay and again this dual album another one that goes number one on the billboard 200 for albums and I just want to know you know for people keeping track at home on the meat Miley Cyrus side. One of the legacies of this was was see you again because that was where this whole thing she's just being my like came from. That was your first single so you again to crack the top ten of the billboard hot 100 so I mean it's worked this idea that like we can create a separate identity. All of the third idea and then we go down and we're going to have another fourth character is actually all comes around and that song takes place. For see you again it was a little bit of a mistake again the fans made that possible because at that time you know I think there was an idea that maybe Miley Cyrus was competitive with Hannah so the support was really funneled in Hannah and Miley Cyrus is almost like an opening act. And then it reversed where Miley Cyrus kind of started to outgrow the character because Hannah is you know I love her as a as a character and I love being her but she is very choreographed and Miley has always been very off the cuff and I think the fans even then were like I can't always know what she's going to like say or do and we kind of like that. And you know with Hannah she's a little bit more you kind of know what you're going to get and so getting to play both characters where Hannah got to be the kind of not predictable in a bad way but kind of a you know what she is she's a pop princess and then you would get Miley and I would come out and like a studded leather jacket with my name on it and it already had a bit of a sense of I'm sorry covering Nirvana songs on that tour which was hilarious because now I look at videos of like 10 year old girls that definitely weren't there to hear back. Putting smells like teen spirit and with fly on the wall you know that was because your music tastes were already heading in that direction you know that was not what you know if it had been left up to what you were doing on the show. That was not the kind of music you would be there would have been it there would have been no difference between Hannah and Miley if I would have just kind of kept up with whatever the idea that Disney would have had for me as Miley it probably would have not been a big departure from Hannah. I knew not only it needed to be but I was so different than Hannah and still kind of am. And I think the two divides are really someone based on she's based on she's an identity she's a persona she's not a person and my thing that's always really resonated with people is the humanity of what I kind of say and do. And you've obviously come out the other side of all this with sort of on what I'm who I am and you can take it early but early on I would imagine for a kid. Did it get a bit confusing to figure out who you are when you're playing somebody who's essentially supposed to be a version of you and all this like what how did you navigate that side of things. I don't know where it came from but I do feel that I've somewhat always had kind of looking intuitive sense of who I am and I've been really confident in times and that things that I never should be confident I have no reason to think that I'm capable of this and I just do it anyways. As I've gotten older I miss that part about being younger and when you're younger I feel like you don't know what failing even is so there's no doubt in your mind when you go to try something now I can feel myself always I know what's on the other side of trying something that failures possible so I get a little bit more you know as we get older we stiffen up thinking about doing something we're afraid of but when I was younger I didn't think about that at all and I didn't really think about Hannah in competition to my lay it all. Interesting okay so this all led up to studio album number two which was breakout in 2008 another number one album on the billboard 200 making you just again for people keeping track at home. This is the youngest part you became the youngest person ever to have for number one albums when you're including the soundtrack albums which why wouldn't you now you have established that there's a interest and enthusiasm and demand for you as you but you're still on the show which means that the next year you've got soundtrack album number three Hannah Montana the movie which with the movie which is still people are still going nuts for this stuff 31 million dollar opening weekend for the movie soundtrack again number one on billboard 200 with I guess if there's a single that immediately comes to mind for people would be the climb with that one. It's always going to be another mountain I'm always going to want to make it move I'm always going to be an up and battle. But was it getting frustrating where of course. Simulating that like Hannah Montana had created opportunities and I know you said you were grateful for whatever but at this point. You like I said you'd sort of started to be a person that people were independently interested in but you are still obligated to do things with the show was that getting to be a little tough honestly I remember from how I remember it sitting here today I think I was still pretty into it because I liked I liked what Hannah gave me I liked that Hannah was insurance that I knew that if I put tickets of on sale people would come see Hannah and I always just kind of said I'm going to take the opportunity and kind of tag along and then as I started tagging it kind of started eclipsing the Hannah thing as time went on but you know that happens a little bit later but I started touring and touring is Hannah and touring is Miley at the same time and Miley just kind of had like a bit of a I guess something that Hannah missed which was that kind of authentic connection to the fans I could talk more off the cuff with them because the way that I kind of am like you said is a little more like it or leave it and Hannah is a bit more polished and so they felt like you know they were getting almost to see behind the curtain of Hannah Montana which they were they were getting to see the real Hannah which was me yes interesting thing with the next not an album but an EP the time of our lives the next year 2009 that's part in the USA all I think at that point your highest charting thing number two on the hot 100 for my hands at the same time I think was that same year or you shot at the same year but it came out the next year was the last song a movie that you know Nicholas Sparks from the notebook or whatever but in this case I think reflective of just how popular and excited people were about you like he wrote that for you based on you right but your mom at that time had I found a quote where she said quote this film is like taking that first baby step away from Hannah Montana close quote do you remember it like that I do I think because you know obviously there was theme of relationship like more mature relationship which also you know is a kind of prediction in the future but a real relationship death and grief and my character was obviously a bit more moody than my least or whatever be and so I do think that that was a really really smart kind of first yeah kind of inch into this direction of me separating myself and then I guess the next not baby stuff like but some step in that direction would be can't be tame same years that movie studio album number three I guess in this case where title track in the top 10 of the 100 the album number three on the billboard 200 but I wonder you were still on the show for another year after that but on in this one this was a very unmily steward or Hannah Montana right like how much would you say it was you making a calculation like I need to gradually do or is this just what came out it didn't feel Calcule laid it at the time for me I think that the people around me that were strategizing were excited about this step I think they saw what it was going to do I didn't write it thinking that this was going to be my hand it of course I definitely didn't see it that way but I did see it as I'm so clearly knowing who I am now and I'm going to do what that is even if that contradicts Hannah or or what Disney has in mind for me and I started leaning more and more into the take it or leave it inside of me did you get pushback which could be polite or it could be like were you getting any kind of like maybe please don't do this or that kind of thing because just to contextualize also so can't be tame came out in 2010 this is around the time that I think maybe it came from a place of love but people were you know almost acting like as if everyone was your parent or guardian or teacher I mean they made a big deal about the vanity fair thing in 2008 the teen choice awards in 2009 August 2012 when you when you ultimately cut your hair like everybody is like in hindsight and look at the world today it's like yeah this is pretty mild but I mean every single thing people had a opinion about and it was you know I think a lot of faux outrage or whatever but like I guess between that and the Disney side of things were you feeling pushback to what you were naturally gravitating towards I did I started feeling that more and more and I started feeling the call to kind of yeah separate myself in the character and wanting that I I was definitely experiencing and experimenting in my life with things that don't wouldn't make it on the sitcom so I'm starting to feel like those are important things for me to experience at that age just like any other teenager but I also had the responsibility of this character and this like franchise but I ultimately kind of put myself first unconscious you know now I know now I realize it was kind of like a subconscious thing that I think on my younger self kind of had the courage to do it because I think that a lot of the pushback was fear you know obviously people go and got a really tight grip on this franchise and like everything couldn't be going better right now and there was definitely starting to be pushed back and someone that really had my back the entire time which seems counter is my mom she was really into it she really really knew that what I was doing was the right thing for Miley Cyrus maybe not for Hannah but for Miley Cyrus for sure which is that's her priority and I guess you know the thing that perhaps like perhaps not responding to what you wanted to do the people who there have been you know I don't I interviewed Mickey Rooney in his life and he was you know as big as you can get as a child after but I think that that's really cool he went a little a little off the wall later in life because I think he was so boxed into way beyond the age where you know you kind of declare a bit of independence he was he had not and I wonder if not being who you are can have some really bad effects I definitely think so I think you know for me there's that kind of idea that the kind of the only way out is through and I think when you don't get to go through a natural growth cycle I don't think it could be healthy for anyone I think you have to trial and error is like the best way to learn you know and I think for when you're scared the error thing is really scary because you've just got a lot of people depending on you and you know not only your livelihood but everyone around you is depending on you to kind of bring home what you usually do when you do a successful tour you sell out or whatever it is or big movie or so it's scary when you're keeping grownups that have families you're keeping their lights on and you're just a kid you know that's scary so we've been talking about these like incremental steps but I guess if there was one like firm declaration of independence that would have been bangers which comes out this is studio album number four in 2013 first of all I guess it was at the beginning stages of that you parted ways with pretty much everyone right manager label everything why what was that so I think the fear was the thing that really drove me away from the team that I have when I was younger they just got so you know they're so comfortable with what Hannah is Hannah is a guarantee you know that the kids are going to show up but at the end of it I think Hannah you know Hannah would have an expiration date the way anybody does that doesn't grow and evolve and Hannah's story is only she can only evolve as much as she's written to evolve like and the writers are never going to take her all the way you're a Disney sitcom like you're never going to get to experience or to be the thing that Miley Cyrus can push and so the fear was just driving me away from everybody I needed somebody that was unafraid and that's when I knew my managers that I went to at that time which was Larry Rudolph who had had Britney Spears and she had done a similar thing that I really admired going from a girl to a woman in front of everyone and so I knew he was fearless because she had pushed so many boundaries and so he was someone that I felt you know actually really kind of creatively safe with because I knew he would not you know he would give me my mom always says I need bumpers not a bright I need somewhere to know if I'm going too far left too far right but you don't need someone holding you back and so he gave me a really good boundary then the other I guess new creative partners I think on this were the people who you were you know basically songwriting with on that one right I think between for Elle and Mike that was the first time you were working with those guys right yeah it's interesting though because and maybe this was just something that as maybe you're speaking about this when you've said this that you know things have changed since then but you're you know for example on that one on that bangers album we can't stop right this was huge number two on on the hot 100 all of this certainly unlike anything in terms of the video and the visuals anything that you had done before totally different but you have said that like that song and even party in the USA before these are like not the kinds of music that you yourself would ever listen to how do you explain that you know for me I at party in the USA even at the time it never quite felt like me I always grew up listening to like Stevie next and my dad loved at a James and I just even my album before the two maybe one or two albums that I had done as Miley Cyrus before they had kind of more of a I mean I was only 12 so they can only be so edgy but they were edgy or you know they had more of a sense of rock and roll and so part in the USA always felt kind of overly kind of pop for me and I think probably the reason I wasn't loving it was because it did kind of remind me of Hannah it didn't have a big divide and we can't stop again I in the moment I actually really really loved that song I think now being older obviously it's kind of sentiment and premise is about kind of you know you only live once and go for it all the way and now just being older and wiser I kind of relate to the lyrics differently but at the time I was really living them some of the time I loved the song I loved the influence that Mike brought into the studio because it was really aligned with what I was listening to in the life I was living and then I truly don't believe I mean there's maybe I could count them on my hand for sure the most impactful people for me creatively out of anyone personally or professionally and that would be for L he's definitely on the one hand what makes him that a pack full he taught me really some of the most meaningful hacks one of songwriting like if we would get into a like a creative dry spell like the way that he would re-inspire a room it could even be because I guess from being so diligent on Hannah he would like actually take me to kind of shop or go for a drive you lived in Miami so like go to the beach like he incorporated that playtime that I didn't ever really have and so when I would get like a creative block he would take me shopping and he would say you're gonna see a bag that you're gonna know what song you want to write that's gonna sound or look like that bag you're gonna see the texture you're gonna see the color and you know there's a whole thing to that really seeing music he sees music as a physical thing don't you as well though I think they call it synesthesia yeah I don't think I had them before I worked with Pharrell oh it came after and he taught me I remember he took me to go see the Chanel bag and it was in a case and I was like I know what the song should be and he's like I told you and we went back and we wrote a song called 4x4 and it was because the bag was was Camo and so I said I liked that I'm from Nashville maybe we should do something Nashville influenced because of the Camo and we wrote 4x4 amazing now also out of that album for instance was wrecking ball right I came in like a wrecking ball I never hit some hardy love all I wanted was to break your walls all you ever did was wreck me yeah you wrecked me I let you high up in the sky and now you're not coming down your first number one on a hundred three weeks there but one of the things that again I guess people have a hard time letting go of their of their kids and in your case everybody seems to think that you were their kids so there was for you know with we can't stop the you know I guess the some of the music video there same with with wrecking ball the VMA is that you're just you must have to some degree expected a reaction right was did you get the reaction that you wanted it's never been about that expectation of reaction for me I think again my mom is somehow the brains behind all the crazy things that people go how could her mother let her do that it's like it was her idea it was all my idea but my mom just really supported it and I wasn't really going for the reaction so much why I just wanted what I cared about most was that teddy bear I was like obsessed with it that was years of me I wanted to work with this artist Todd James who made it and made all the costumes and again I was focused on the creative part and I didn't know what the big deal was and never thought it was a big deal until I woke up the next day and then you looked at and then I was staying at the Trump hotel and Trump sent me a message that said don't let them get you down and I was like well why would I be down and then I turned on the TV I was like oh because everyone in the world is making fun of me okay so maybe that is not it's not a coincidence then that what you did next with Miley Cyrus and her dead pets 2015 was probably the most like experimental kind of out there I don't know if experiments are right word yeah like is that just because it's like I'm a zero percent of that it was again like all lifestyle just how all my music at the thing about Hannah and in all respect it's a calculation because at the end of it Hannah she's not an artist herself she's a writer's projection of their imagination that's what I love about working with Avatar is I love when you go into a world like Avatar and you see that that's just James Cameron's imagination the Hannah Montana is a grown-ups imagination and I put life into her imagine into her I made it more than an imagination I made her a real person to the point where people think Hannah Montana is real and in some way that she is but I never thought about doing dead pets as this is gonna be my way to really you know totally divide myself between the two I just was living that lifestyle the kind of like psychedelic rock and roll experimental nature that was just what my day-to-day life looked like just like with bangers that's what it looked like too so it's just reflecting changes that have had like because each the thing that is kind of if not unique certainly rare with you is that you've covered so much territory like each one of these is kind of completely different from the other which is incredible that people usually find a niche that they're comfortable in or good at and that's where they stay but I get jealous of people like that because I always think people that are consistent are so cool like I even love Zoe Seldonia working with her she kind of like no matter where she is she's you know her she's recognizable she's got a recognizable silhouette you're never gonna go what did she do like unless she's in a character right but I've never been like that I'm very unexpected and I wish I could wake up every day and know who I'm gonna be and like sometimes I even surprise or excite or disappoint myself because I just so get lost and whatever the idea is in the moment I'm gonna do that all the way and sometimes that works in my favor and sometimes it doesn't but it leads for exciting life you know I but I do wish I had some sort of pillar which I think is where my relationships are so important to me my personal life is like that's as grounded as I get because otherwise I'm kind of something new every day could just take me into a whole new direction interesting well shouting along towards the present uh and certainly you know gonna spend plenty of time on that but studio album number six younger now kind of your I guess more most country of albums Malibu the being the single that I guess is maybe the case study that I'd love to ask you about here with that one because another top 10 single but also at the time you said quote this is like all my eras in one record my 11-year-old self my banger self my dead pets girl are all in here close quote and next year the sky is more blue and Malibu had you had something like that before that was that reflective of all your no younger now was important to me because I wrote everything myself and that was the most important thing that I just didn't want to share lyrics with anyone I wanted it to be journal entries and so I think that's what I meant by it felt the most unified was because it was at a time where girls like kind of modifying their bodies just started getting popular because Instagram just kind of started in popular and I started seeing that young girls didn't want to be younger now they want to be older now and I was going I don't want to be older I want to be younger and my life was so beautiful when I was young I loved the I my life's beautiful now but I loved the idea of like when you're a little kid the way that every day is like a question and you just get to be free and be silly and experiment and you have no responsibility I'm like who wants to get older and like pay their taxes like I want to be little and just go outside and my dad doesn't worry about that so I wrote this song younger now which very much felt like kind of a Disney song but then the dead pets part of it or bangers was the fact that I was taking full ownership of what I wanted to do and it's not the most successful on paper but it was really fulfilling to me there was a period of I think three years between that six and seventh albums and in between there was something that you've said and this kind of surprised me was you described as just like absolutely terrifying and that's glass and very in 2019 it's surprising me because it seems like here's something you've said about performing and I interpreted it at least as performing live earlier on you'd said quote I usually feel pretty bottled up and performing is the only time I get to be myself in my fullest form close quote so at the same time I know you haven't toward I think since around bangers that right yeah and so here this this was obviously a live massive thing but why would that of all things have been the thing that terrified you it's it's such a massive amount of people it's like close to 200 something thousand people and it's I also did a set list that was again I'm not very good at like it wasn't just supporting the record that I was there to play or playing all the hits I decided to do like 40 percent of covers I did Metallica which is how I ended up becoming friends with them and working with they call it my Talika now that's pretty cool that's how I met them because Lars Ulrich was at Glastonbury and he saw me do it and my management at the time was like what are you doing like people come to Glastonbury to hear your hits not other people's hits but I thought when people love these songs and I love these songs and it went really well it was kind of went down as like a kind of classic performance but I at the time I was just really nervous it was the amount of people that was there it was just so intimidating interesting and the thing though is maybe partly because your godmother is Dali Parton or you grew up you know around artists and whatever you seem to have more of a maybe it's an interest or appreciation of like the artists from earlier eras people that maybe even a lot of people your age don't really know about so I wonder how much that had to do with plastic hearts 2020 seventh album where your collaborators on here like Joan Jett and Debbie Harry right or was that not that covered hearted glass that's right you cover her billy idle like I mean it's it's awesome I'm sure like for people who somebody like you who does know and appreciate them to get to work with them but like that's let me frame it this way because the plan was not even to do that album right you were doing you were starting towards like a trilogy or something of EPs um yeah I was working on a trilogy of EPs and part of me is really bummed out that I abandoned that idea because it wasn't totally my idea to leave it alone it was just at the time my house had recently burned down I had gotten a divorce my personal life was just kind of like literally on fire and so I kind of abandoned that and went into this direction of I think you know an avatar without getting any spoilers the reason I love it is obviously because fire and ash the theme just really resonates with me and it's about resilience and building from the ground up and part of that is strength and fighting back and that's a theme in the film and I needed to fight back and to fight back I needed to harden up and so plastic hearts somewhat kind of bums me out a little bit because I think that instead of leaning into the trauma from a vulnerable place and letting people in emotionally instead I hardened up and kind of shut people out because kind of being so exposed and being so kind of you know music and sharing that with the world and invites people into a really personal time that I wanted to kind of keep private as I could because it was exposed whether I really liked it or not and I just really kind of that was I think the most enclosed I had ever been and I think that's why plastic hearts I still kind of have a love for it but also a little bit of a disappointment in myself because it's the time that I kind of I feel like I shut out but we were also living in a global pandemic so yeah you're getting yourself a little break in yeah and I've just again people for reference that's midnight sky that's never be me angels like you just for reminders endless summer vacation 2023 so many great songs on here including I think your reference earlier used to be young river jaded but flowers is the one that I think for most people is going to come to mind first I loved I listened to your podcast with another podcast you did with Zayn Lowe where he likened it to I will survive which I think is like the right I mean yeah not right or wrong but it's an apt comp you have called it I don't know if this is still case but your favorite of your songs is that okay I think so I think because the way that I love the way it's affected people I love that it's a song that I've written it's kind of really given me the thing that I wanted on all my albums it gives me the the songwriting you know as a songwriter it gave me the fulfillment of writing my own music top to bottom but it also gave me as a producer I made it sound the way that I really wanted I love that I the way I described it was I wanted it to sound really good to a pair of headphones if you're walking alone down the chandelier's day yeah I wanted it to feel like you were just you you had just gotten your heartbroken and you flew yourself to Paris and now you're listening to your favorite song and I yeah I just love the way that it makes me feel the way it makes people feel and I feel like if anything it's a full kind of circle of my dad's original goal of bringing you know a destiny to bring hope to the world I think that's what that song did and in addition it also did eight weeks at number one that's pretty good too it's pretty good and your first two Grammys I was there that night and it was awesome you performed you then win best pop solo performance and then the biggest deal of all record of the year and a lot of people like to act a little bit too cool for school that this doesn't mean anything to me or whatever you and maybe at one time another time in your life maybe that might have been your reaction I don't know but I thought it was great that you acknowledged that it meant a lot yeah and I wonder if you could describe why why that because you've you know look at all these billboard stats that I'm saying and we know the sales and like there are a zillion metrics that say you've been a great success but what is it about the Grammys that made meant that much to you well one thing is I collect golden brass so I was very excited about the statue it looked really nice in my I had a place for it before I even went which I think is a part of not having expectations but there's there's there's like non-expectations and then manifestation and I and I did go there with the idea that I was happy to go whether I came home with something or not and when I walked off stage my mom goes I know you're just really happy that you've got more brass for your collection I was like kind of you know I think because I never had one I have done so many things and I think every year it falls the nominations near my birthday and I'm always a bit disappointed because whether you like it or not it always becomes something that not only you hope for but the people that you collaborate with it's always something that they wish for and I want to win not for me but for them sure sure that was 2023 2024 you did something which you might have I don't know if you'd ever previously done this outside of a Hannah Montana related movie but an original song for a movie yeah which was for the last showgirl you did beautiful that way which I mainly want to bring up because that's again a year before we get to this new song for Avatar which we'll talk about but like writing a song for a movie first of all why did you decide that was the time you were going to do that how procedurally is it different from when you just you know write any other song well I'm really inspired by Pamela Anderson's performance and her evolution and what she's kind of stripped back and how she's actually become more for full self by taking away I always say sometimes it's not what you start doing it's what you stop doing and just by letting kind of go and like not performing anymore she's actually delivered her best performances so Pam has been I said I could count on hands of someone that's been inspired me she's one of them who she's been and who she is and she's been so good to me as I've grown up she's just been really supportive of me and I wanted she's like kind of family I want to do it for her I wanted to support that moment and I never thought both of us were be gonna set the Golden Globes as nominees together so I really just wrote it as a love letter to Pam so between that coming out and Avatar Fire and Ash Camp coming out was your earlier this year your night's TV album something beautiful which you said would not have been possible without the prior one endless summer vacation yeah and this one I think I guess if if there's one song that you know is like kind of again the the one that we just raised to talk about maybe it's end of the world which I never would have guessed until I read it but you wrote it for your mom I did I wrote it for my mom and now that I'm engaged Max is in the video with me and that song was really about kind of you know I think there's a lot of fear in our world right now obviously you hear the kind of especially on social media you hear a lot more bad news than good news and for me I've always like I said I kind of contradict everything so when something is going bad my instinct is to let celebrate the good let's not focus on the thing that's kind of in front of us let's focus on the thing that we forgot that song is a total love letter to her I wrote that actually about a day we were apart she was um it was the fourth of July and I usually spend that with her and she was in Italy I was in Malibu and I was talking to her and we were both crying on the phone she'd only been gone like a week and I wrote this love song for my mom and that's a theme that I love in Avatar as well that like love can be deeper than just romance or just a partner it can be something like a mother a child a bond between someone that's chosen and so then to put Max in the video and use that as kind of my love letter to the two pillars of my life that really keep me where I am now which is the best I've ever been that's awesome tomorrow was coming for sure let's pretend it's not the end of the world all right well you set up the perfect transition present day with dream is one I mean you you it's not like you have known James Cameron forever in the way that you're talking about say Pamela Anderson somebody where did you guys meet and you know this came out of it well I did connect the dots of how that led to this great so we met backstage at the Disney Legends event which we were both inducted I was waiting in line my turn and I said you need a song and he did and that's like I always do that I mean I did that at the globe last year baby reindeer they're going up to accept their globe and I said if you ever need a song or if you're doing season two I'd love to do it you know I just like doing music for people yeah and I like also being a part of films that he's been dedicated to this for almost 20 years and if I can in some way kind of take something off the there's so much to create the world of Avatar and the thing that I feel he's you know obviously he's best at making his films and I feel that I'm someone that if I can go and get myself by a piano I can do I can write a song that feels like it's large scale enough to go to flow into something like Avatar because it needed to fit but I also can write something that's intimate and emotional enough that can hopefully kind of bring the heart forward because obviously it being so visual you're you're totally entertained and immerse the entire time but I always want to bring it back to the emotion of what the films really based on which is love and had you been super into the prior to did you need to see footage of number three to to be writing yours or is it enough to have him tell you or show you a script or what I did I watched the film and I've watched it in different kind of you know in its process I've watched it kind of be created and that was really helpful for me because it made me feel more a part of the journey more a part of the family and because they've been working together so long you know they've been filming this movie for you know decades that it made me feel really a part of it which is what Avatar is about that chosen kind of clan and feeling a part of something and I think I actually now I remember hearing that did you like get some of the footage to while you're writing the song you were able to put it around yourself yeah we projected Pandora into the studio so I was actually in sunset sound but I could create the world of Avatar around me and that was really inspiring because usually you're doing visual and music in the opposite order where you're writing a song and then later you create a visual but this time to be able to be immersed it was making it so obvious when you know a beautiful creature or an incredible colored tapestry or something was shown you would go that's what we need to do and was was Jim telling you from the beginning like I'd love for this song to go at the end or did it could it have like basically what kind of framework did you have of how it was I knew it was the button I knew it was at the end you know the thing that I love about him is I would go to column and think it was going to be a two-minute phone call and we would talk for two hours and if we would just talk about the real stuff and what's that makes it so magic because Avatar is such a fantasy it's so out of this world that then when you can just talk about the grounded kind of everyday life things that you know you don't always get to talk to James Cameron about he has a pretty amazing perspective on love life death the grief trauma healing resilience courage faith and taking that and then actually getting to know him made it that was more important to me for the songwriting process than even getting to watch the movie itself was getting because it's his imagination so getting into his mind on how he perceives the human experience that was really really helpful and his instinct and his guidance was be yourself and I hadn't even said yesterday when we were whatever you know of this when I was speaking to James last time I told him all I'm you know gonna go and do some press and talk about the film everybody and he was like oh well just be yourself that's always his go-to and for a world uh that is yeah so creative for him to just really want someone to be authentic I think that's what makes Avatar the phenomenon that it is because it's not just blue and fire and another world people can see the I guess the small story in its large delivery yeah totally and this is you collaborating with Mark Ronson who you've worked with before right and Andrew Wyatt I worked with and Simon Franklin yes we love Simon so where do you remember just how this evolved like was it I know this is kind of the cliche question for like music or lyrics what was first what was the you know this title where does that come from just curious how it evolved so the title was a request actually from James and I he wanted a song that felt intimate and I went back and said well we dream as one is pretty mass it's pretty epic to me when I think of the word we I kind of think of like as the world I think of his culture we dream as one we're stronger together you know there's a line in the film that Jake says it's something about you know kind of arrows bound can never be broken yeah it was a bit of a writing challenge to go how do I make a song about we which feels so massive feels so small and so intimate and then how do I surrender to a film so big and not go toe to toe how do I actually let the vulnerability and the tenderness be the strength of the song and so we kind of worked the song a couple of different ways it wasn't like we just came in and obviously when someone works on something think they've been filming this one since like 2016 oh my god we are gonna have to work on this for more than a day so we did a lot of songwriting sessions we actually wrote the song that it is now dream as one and we threw it out we actually got rid of it and we wrote another one and then that one didn't feel quite right and we left and then we came back and we listened to the other one and go oh the one that's out now I'm really that's the one and then we threw it away again and then we wrote like kind of another song and then we mark was out of town and I called mark and said okay so we really abandoned the one and he goes I don't know let's just take a break and then he comes back in town and there's another song and we listen to it and then I'm like let's listen to dream is one one more time and we do and everyone goes forget these other songs it's dream is one and we went back to day one that's so crazy I have changed the songs like maybe sonically or musically or you change the melody but I've never written three different songs and James never even heard the other two they were not worth listening to the one just always was was Avatar even through the past even through the ashes in the sky baby when we dream we dream as one every time I breathe it's a song to keep this love alive I know when we dream we dream as one every time we dream we dream as one every time we dream we dream as one well with the last 30 seconds if I can or let's maybe in fairness a minute just first like thing that comes your mind about a few things could you do this or would you want to do this with a bot movie too that's come up as well like the idea I definitely would yeah do you have ideas already yeah I I mean I actually feel like kind of my last album a lot of people when they were listening to songs like easy lover they would say this sounds like a bond song that would be awesome okay what's it like for you I think it was at the same Grammys recently when maybe it was the year after I don't know but like a lot of the same people who are winning Grammys alongside or around the same time as you are now people who say basically they wouldn't have existed without you I mean Chapel Rhone I think has said that her alter ego is because of Hannah Montana/Miley Stewart Sabrina Carpenter I guess want to contest to meet you she was 10 yeah then you've got to live your alter ego all these people who are and it goes on from there but basically I think choice of on right like all these guys not I mean you're still so young but that's got to be crazy to think that you've already had that kind of an impact no definitely and I hope that the way that I'm living life now where I'm really balanced between personal life and professional I hope that kind of inspires them as much as the kind of height of what I was doing I hope now that these women can see that you can have a really healthy personal existence because there isn't many people in my position that get to have it all and maybe actresses more than musicians because actresses they play a character and they leave it on set and musicians you know isolated touring for long periods of time you're putting your personal life into songs and sharing where when a character you could maybe put your personal story into a character but you get some sort of you know you kind of can stay anonymous in that kind of way and so I hope that these people that have been inspired by the height of this career when I was younger can now see that you can be equally as successful with still having a really healthy personal life last question first episode of Hannah Montana aired March 24 2006 we are coming up on 20 years which you just got to feel a little crazy yeah so obviously all this stuff that we've been talking about has happened in a period of 20 years it's a lot has been packed in a lot of amazing work and ups and downs and all of this if you had never gotten cast if they had gone with somebody else on Hannah Montana big mistake big mistake of course absolutely would have been a big mistake what do you think your life would look like today oh I think two things I think there's a chance that I would be just how I am now but without the success without fame and just be fulfilled probably singing somewhere and in a matter where just doing that and you know obviously family is so important to me that I think I could have lived a very fulfilled life I don't think I could tell you well I would have been devastated I don't know who I would be I think I would be me just maybe without some of the stuff that I have now and then my other thing thinks that damn it I would have made it happen regardless I would have I would have just found another way I would have been Nick kid I don't know I would have showed Disney well thank you so much and congratulations thank you oh yeah thanks a lot for you thanks for listening to a awards chatter we really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app and to follow us on Twitter and Instagram where our handle is at awards chatter on those platforms we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend until next time thanks again for tuning in