5 Things We Learned From Lana Del Rey’s ‘Billboard’ Interview

Lana Del Rey remains a bit of a cipher to many, despite the fact that she has four studio albums under her belt. This is, in part, due to the carefully-constructed persona she inhabits both across social media platforms and in her work. That's not to say she isn't "real" — many of her songs explore vivid human emotions and relationships in spite of, and at times aided by, her seemingly glacial and hyper-stylized image — but audio interviews have succeeded at showing her 'focused workhorse' side, while magazine profiles have historically failed. Billboard's new cover story, "The Mysterious Ways of Lana Del Rey," aims to cut through the mystique.

The singer-songwriter talks to novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner, who says at the story's outset that he met her at an L.A. party "in deglamorized “Stars Without Makeup” mode," where "she was unpretentious and softly gregarious, like a doe-eyed, underdressed newcomer to the Town." Translation: Lana is a normal girl in real life, though even her turnt-down beauty causes grown men to cast her as some B-movie character who "looks like Elvis and Priscilla, all in one." So what did we learn from their chat?

1. Don't hold your breath for a Honeymoon tour. We learn that Lana has no pressing urge to tour in support of Honeymoon, as she practically just wrapped the Endless Summer Tour. "I do everything backwards. It already happened -- I’m actually done with the world tour I started four years ago, when I needed to be out there. I really needed to be out there singing.” But, she says, she IS dreaming up a 40-minute video based on Elizabeth Taylor's 1965 film The Sandpiper. 

2. If you walk around the California coastline long enough, maybe you'll bump into her. "I go for long walks, long drives. I’ll get in the car and drive the streets, feeling for places. I go to Big Sur."

3. She (still) struggles with mortality-related anxiety issues. "It’s hard for me sometimes to think about going on when I know we’re going to die," she says, adding that it's gotten worse over the past three years. "I remember being -- I was, I think, 4 years old -- and I’d just seen a show on TV where the person was killed. And I turned to my parents and said, “Are we all going to die?” They said “Yes,” and I was totally distraught! I broke down in tears and said, “We have to move!” She tried therapy a few times, but looks to music-making and list-making as ways to soothe herself.

4. She'd consider having kids with someone more "normal" than she is. As is the case with literally every single female celebrity of child-bearing age, Lana's asked the "do you want kids?" question. She'd "love having daughters," if someone was "on the same page." Whether that someone is her boyfriend, photographer Francesco Carrozzinni, isn't addressed.

5. She was up for the role of Sharon Tate in a movie about the Manson Family. 
"I thought, “That’s so right.” At that time, there were three Manson movies being talked about, but none were ever made." Her friend James Franco also asked her to be in movies, but "I think he heard my hesitance and got scared." She then goes on to pitch a fairly solid idea for a movie about a tortured singer — read the full interview over at Billboard.

Sad there's no Honeymoon tour in the works? Ready to camp out in a Big Sur park in hopes of a Lana encounter? Let us know in the comments.

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