Olivia Rodrigo Has Some Words for Her Younger Self

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To promote her latest album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Olivia Rodrigo sat down with her BFF, actor and writer Madison Hu — the two met as costars on Disney Channel’s Bizaardvark — for a sprawling interview and cover story that will appear in all 19 global editions of Cosmopolitan Magazine‘s Summer issue.

Here are a few of our favorite tidbits.

On how turning 23 feels different than 22:

“I just feel a lot less afraid, in a good way. The year is off to a great start.”

On what was on her mind while making the new album:

“I was really excited to write about joy, love, and passion in a way that I had never really done. Most of my big songs are about being sad, angry, heartbroken.”

On whether she finds it hard to write about happiness and whether it’s cringier to be happy or sad:

“It’s not hard to do when I’m sitting there by myself in my room, but it was never the stuff that I put out. Sometimes I listen back to it and I cringe….It’s cringier to be happy. I cringe, but I’m free. All of my favorite love songs have an element of sadness, and that’s what makes them so beautiful. A great love song has so much emotion behind it that it could go either way. I want to make love songs that you can cry to.”

Olivia Rodrigo (Morgan Maher for Cosmopolitan)

On her third studio album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love:

“We really edited the hell out of this album. There was so much more joy in the songwriting. There are some songs that are plain old sad but also some songs that are just plain old fun.”

On how she has changed from the person who made SOUR five years ago:

“I was so young then and felt like the world was on my shoulders and that I had to have everything together. I was motivated, but there was fear. Now I feel a lot more self-assured. My passion and work ethic come from a place of positivity rather than a scared mindset.”

On anxiety:

“I’m serving anxious forever. I was really nervous the first 10 shows of the GUTS tour. It was hard to be away from home and not have any sense of normalcy. I was freaking out; my nervous system was crashing out. I still get anxious. It’s just different than when I was younger.”

On the tactic she relies on when she’s nervous during a performance:

“I always pick out a person and just sing to them; everyone else is just on the side.”

Olivia Rodrigo (Morgan Maher for Cosmopolitan)

On a boundary she’s proud of setting recently:

“I always thought a boundary was like, ‘Don’t do this.’ But actually, a boundary is like, ‘If you do this, this is how I will react and protect myself.’ It’s not about controlling other people, it’s about how you will respond: If somebody does this, I will be okay because I have this plan in place of what I’m going to do. It gives you so much more confidence and self-assuredness. And honestly, setting boundaries with yourself is really important, too. Saying you’re going to do something and actually doing it. For me, the phone stuff has got to go. Otherwise, I’m a brain rot person.”

On what she’s learned about love lately that she wishes she’d known sooner:

“Patience. Things happen the way that they’re supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be white-knuckle. But also, Madison, you’re the longest love of my life besides my parents. It’s like that book that I’m obsessed with, the Dolly Alderton book, Everything I Know About Love, I do for my female friends.”

Olivia Rodrigo (Morgan Maher for Cosmopolitan)

On her friendship with Madison (speaking directly to Madison):

“You know me in and out and still love me anyway, and you call me on my sh*t. That’s a true friend….That is one of my stipulations if I want to date someone: Would they be okay sitting and hanging and playing cards with me and Madison? If they can’t hang with that, then they can’t hang with me….But no guy has ever made me laugh as hard as you’ve made me laugh. Not even a quarter.”

On what she would tell young Olivia if she could go back in time:

“I would tell her not to wear some of the outfits that she did. And there’s probably a boy or two that I’d be like, ‘Girl, you could have saved yourself the trouble.’”

Rodrigo also sat down with Cosmo editor-in-chief Willa Bennett for a video interview and mood board-building sesh. Check it out below.