Crazy and lovin' it
There's no stopping Miley Cyrus - from having pigs as pets to flaunting outrageous outfits - the standout singer is bent on not being boring
Ever since she hosted the MTV Video Music Awards a little over a year ago, the world got a well-deserved break from Miley Cyrus and her outrageous over-sexed antics.
Now she is back on our small screens in two shows, acting in Crisis In Six Scenes and judging on The Voice, but is thankfully moving on from the days of We Can't Stop and Wrecking Ball.
Crisis In Six Scenes is Woody Allen's first foray into creating, writing and directing a TV series.
The comedy, which premieres on Amazon Video in the US at the end of the month, is set in the 1970s. Allen plays Sidney Muntzinger, a television writer married to a psychologist (Elaine May).
Cyrus is the revolutionary who has hidden in their house and is looking for a way to escape to Cuba to shake off the authorities who are after her.
Despite the US singer-actress' absence from public life for a while, her quirky persona is intact when we meet her at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills.
The 23-year-old is dressed in a whimsical way - a colourful patchwork vest, cartoon animal-printed bell bottoms and silver platform heels. Her blonde hair with very dark roots is piled high on top of her head (pictured at right).
NO BECAME YES
She talks a mile a minute, happily responding at length to questions, especially if they are about her pets. About her fiance, Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, 26, not so much.
Cyrus didn't really want to do Crisis In Six Scenes when she got the call, but out of respect, she decided to meet Allen to turn him down in person. Of course that didn't happen.
She says: "I never really wanted to step into a character because I am a character of myself, and I am already in my own movie of my life.
"I had just moved, so all I wanted to do was play with my pig. But I felt too embarrassed to call Allen and say, 'Sorry, I am too busy playing with my pig'. So I thought I should at least go meet him."
For some reason, she decided to read the script at the meeting.
"I became obsessed with my character because I felt like it wasn't a character at all, it was me. It was just reading me in a different time, it was reading me in that revolution era."
She ended up loving working with Allen because of his fast and efficient film-making.
"There are no big glam trailers, there's no, like, people giving foot rubs while you are eating caviar...
"He is not the kind of guy that is going to go and give you a pat on the back every time you do a good job. He hired you because he trusts you to do a good job."
Her country singer dad Billy Ray Cyrus lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Cyrus visits from Los Angeles, but she is mostly in the new house she bought, a farm in Malibu, California.
And it sounds like a menagerie.
She says: "I am the only person with seven dogs who goes and asks if I can babysit other people's dogs, because I just want to be around as many dogs as possible. And all animals, really.
"I just got these two mini horses (Pumpkin and Dumpling) on a truck that was going to Mexico to be turned into glue, and my friend was, like, if you can buy them, we can get them off the truck. So I was, like, chase that truck!"
Does it bother her that people think she is crazy?
FORGET BLAH
"I am crazy, I agree," Cyrus says very seriously, then laughs.
"Blah is something that hopefully will never be written on my gravestone. I am crazy, but I am actually not. If crazy means fun, and crazy means I will just do whatever I like, that is true.
"I always say I am extreme, but I am logical. I think about it in a way where I never would be endangered.
"I am crazy, but I know what I am. And I know that part of it is always being funny. Part of it is kidding. I am kind of playing crazy a little bit more than I am."
She adds: "People think I go out and I am always running around the world, and I am never. I am always at home with my cats and my pigs."
Confidence is something she seems to have in spades, but on days she feels insecure, her secret is to "put on a crazy outfit, and then I feel better".
Hemsworth is more low-key.
"That's because he leaves it all for me, the energy."
Any wedding plans to become Australia's favourite daughter-in-law?
Cyrus says: "I don't know about getting anything else, but I know I will be living in Australia if (US presidential candidate) Donald Trump is running this country, for sure.
"That is what Liam is holding on to, like we can go back home. We all got to run," she says, laughing.
In the meantime, Cyrus is very proud of her role on the 11th season of reality TV singing series The Voice, where she joins regular judges-coaches Adam Levine and Blake Shelton as well as fellow new addition Alicia Keys. She is the youngest on the panel ever cast.
It premieres on StarWorld (StarHub TV Ch 501/Singtel TV Ch 301) on Sept 20 at 1pm and airs every Tuesday and Wednesday at 1pm, 6pm and 10pm.
She says: "This Voice set is so over the top, it makes me laugh. It feels like you are filming in a space shuttle.
"And the show is also very unproduced, which I really, really love.
"There are no directors and producers telling you what to say or who to choose. There is no script.
"It's also not an evil competition. It's not about putting people down, it's about lifting up the artist, but it's also about the insanity among the coaches."
She especially enjoys working with US R&B diva Keys.
"I didn't know how we would be together as a team and we didn't really know each other and I never assume.
"Actually, in this industry, my pet peeve is that everyone thinks if you are famous, you just know each other. And we just pretend we have been best friends for 30 years even though we just met, because that is what people want to see.
"But I don't live like that, and if I am going to say someone is my friend, I really mean it, and she is a really great friend."
I am crazy, but I know what I am. And I know that part of it is always being funny. Part of it is kidding. I am kind of playing crazy a little bit more than I am.
- Miley Cyrus
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