With new music and a “Megalopolis” role, the “America's Got Talent” winner comes into her own – even if “it makes people really uncomfortable”

Eight years after Grace VanderWaal won “America's Got Talent,” people still see her as the shy 12-year-old girl from Kansas who captivated everyone with her ukulele playing and thoughtful songs.

“I recently had the strangest experience,” says VanderWaal, now 20 diversity via Zoom from LA, the blunt bangs of her teenage years were replaced with a sleek platinum bob. She tells how, one evening with friends, she met a woman coming out of the bathroom.

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“She was like, 'You're a woman!' You're an adult!'” VanderWaal says, mimicking the drunken fan's shock. “I literally wanted to gently raise her, but she couldn't get over it. She couldn’t handle it.”

Lately, VanderWaal has been faced with a lot of that kind of reaction – fans who can't stop seeing her as a symbol of the purity and innocence of youth – even though she's long since ditched the ukulele and her pixie-girl image.

“I was so afraid of destroying this dream for people,” she says. “But I want you to ask yourself: Why do you feel personally affected? It’s really sad, but it was very liberating to reclaim that for myself.”

After winning America's Got Talent, VanderWaal released her debut EP, Perfectly Imperfect, which became the bestselling EP of 2016. Their first album, 2017's Just the Beginning, was based on the folky ukulele sound that captivated America. But in the years that followed, VanderWaal broke out of this mold and released a series of singles that showed an edgier side and featured more complicated production.

Now VanderWaal is preparing to release her second album, and perhaps the first that is truly representative of her. This year, she signed with Pulse Records and began pushing the project in a “conceptual” direction – a direction she thinks will surprise fans.

“It's definitely going to upset people and make them really uncomfortable,” she says of the album (whose title and release date have not yet been announced). “I’m talking about some pretty serious and heavy topics that don’t sell through the mainstream.”

She says she pitched the album at several points and “scared a lot of grown men” in the process. Pulse was the only label that didn't deviate from their ideas.

“I said crazy shit and Pulse is like, 'Oh, we love it!' Yes!'” she says. “They really said, 'Yeah, let's freak people out together.'”

For the first single, VanderWaal chose a title that would represent “a beautiful, gentle reintroduction.” “Call It What You Want” — a grunge-tinged guitar-pop number that debuted on August 16 — is a little tamer than the rest of the record. “We thought: Let’s not throw people off,” she says.

But her latest release, the anthemic ballad “What's Left of Me,” out now, hints at the album's darker themes as VanderWaal reflects on a life-changing breakup.

“I really wanted to portray this very specific feeling, not even sadness, but this disgust towards this person,” she says. “It's like, 'Oh, you changed me and made me the woman I am, but you don't deserve that.'”

Lately, art has also been imitating life on screen. After starring in Disney's 2020 teen film “Stargirl” and its sequel, VanderWaal is making a turnaround by playing Vesta Sweetwater – a virginal pop star who falls for a fake – in Francis Ford Coppola's upcoming “Megalopolis.” involved in a sex scandal. As Vesta, VanderWaal performs a successful original song in a key scene before everything falls apart – prompting her to initiate a career rebrand.

Coppola had been following VanderWaal's career for years, and when Megalopolis finally took off, he looked for her. When they met, he told VanderWaal about the project and her character, with whom she “definitely had a connection.” He immediately offered her the job, which included writing two songs for the film.

“It was just such a good collaboration and I was shocked,” she says of working with the director. “You would think, Francis Ford Coppola, with his stature – I would never, ever expect the experience that I had. He really just wanted to follow the art and know what was best for the film.”

So much so that VanderWaal was instrumental in shaping her character, “almost to the point where I thought, 'I can't abuse this power,'” she says.

“I obviously invested something personal in her, but I also saw her as more of a caricature of the subject I was also involved in,” VanderWaal adds.

Although she left “Megalopolis” with “a lot of good and crazy memories,” VanderWaal remains focused on music.

“I don’t think I would ever do something just to check out or be on screen,” she says. “Honey, I spent my whole childhood on the screen.”

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