Grace VanderWaal has been in the spotlight for nearly a decade.
The 21-year-old singer-songwriter won NBC’s America’s Got Talent at the age of 12, but the music VanderWaal was making then is notably different than what she released this month on her new album Childstar, she’ll be the first to say. “I feel what I was making before was just stupid and trash,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom call.
Known during the AGT days for accompanying herself on the ukulele, she leaned towards the folk-pop-rock genre popularized by acts double her age and released her debut album Just the Beginning as a 13-year-old. Now, VanderWaal — who nabbed a modest but pivotal role in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis last year — has shifted into an experimental pop sound on Childstar, her sophomore album released last week through Pulse Records.
The nine-track album dives into her real experience as a young woman working in the industry, accompanied by a beautiful performance video, Childstar: Final Act, which VanderWaal co-directed and co-choreographed. “I felt like I had no choice but to pull some weight and be a part of it,” she says.
Below, VanderWaal discusses with THR why she felt now was the time to tell this story, how young women in the industry are treated and what she wants people to know about her new album.
Why did you feel that this album needed the visual storytelling element with Childstar: Final Act? Why was it important for you to get that out there?
It’s a really complex topic, and I think that there was just so much room, and there still is, to express those feelings and conversations even further, and so I felt like taking it to that space. Number one is what the project was already calling upon, but was very, very appropriate for this because there’s just so much to explore.
Can you talk a little bit about co-directing and co-choreographing the video as well?
I was just making slideshows. Literally, I just walked into Pulse [Records] and had a Google fucking Slides, because I’m a child, of five seconds, 15 seconds, and then ‘Grace falls into a pool of dancers.’ For the choreography, there were tears. We only had three days to choreograph the entire thing – and by the way, it was three days right before filming. It was really stressful.
The album is a really interesting path forward for you, and it’s clearly so personal. Can you take me through the process of creating it? When did you decide this is the time to share this part of your life?
Everything just felt natural. I just feel like it’s been enough time. I’m not scared. I’m not scared of my own feelings. I’m not scared of my story. I’m not scared of people. I just feel like for the first time in my life, I was in a comfortable enough space to start exploring those things I’ve ignored for a while.
Was it difficult to get to a place where you could share some of this?
I think everything just happens with time. You get older, you toughen your skin, you get more experienced, smarter, more confident. I feel like those are all the things you need to believe in yourself enough for a project like this. Also, it’s a brave project, it’s weird, and it’s not going to speak to everyone. I feel like you need to be in a place where you are really, really genuinely OK with that to be able to start making weird projects.
You really have to let that ego die of [thinking] people are going to say this is weird and cringe. I need to just be happy that I made it. Otherwise you’re never going to make it, because you’re going to be thinking what’s cool or what will resonate.
Do you believe your fans understood that you were taking your music in a new direction?
I think people are cool with it. If you like me, you probably also like my little niches and categories and things that I’m a personal fan of because we probably all like the same things. I think that it works out. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think that I’m exploring something that’s probably too off the realm of what people enjoy who listen to me. If it doesn’t really resonate, and they just grew out of it, that’s OK too. It happens. That’s how it goes.
This album seems to be about reclaiming your own agency in your life and reclaiming your own power. What does that mean to you as a young woman, having been doing this for a while?
Young women are just held to so much fucking shit. Whether it’s toward other women and girls and you have to be this superhero, or to men or to be hot, or to be good enough. You get told from a very early age that your life is for everyone else. I even think about interviews throughout my life, and it’s like, “How do you handle your platform?” and “Do you take the responsibility?” And not to be this girl, but… I don’t know. Do guys get asked that as much?
I have been asked that my whole life, so I don’t care. And I do think that’s liberating. Also, I’m not mad at promoting that. I am just living for me and whether I choose to be sexual, not sexual, speak on this, not speak on this, do this or not do that, I’m exhausted, it doesn’t matter. I’ve come to the very, very large acceptance of “if it resonates with you and you like that, that’s for you. If you don’t, then what I’m doing is not for you.” Life can literally be that simple.
What do you want people to take away from this album?
I don’t want to sound self-centered. My whole job is pretty self-centered.
You can sound as self-centered as you want.
If I’m being so honest, I just want people to watch this and think “she’s capable.” I want people to be excited to see what I can create and what I can do. I think I can do so much, and I want to give so much to people. I guess that’s what I want people to see.
What is the one thing that you think is important for people to know about this new stage for you at this point in your career?
I don’t know what I would want them to know. I guess that everything you see or hear comes from me in some way or another. I definitely would always want people to know that. I’m really, really passionate about that. You’ll never see or hear something that didn’t come from me.