Singer Miley Cyrus has said that she almost embarked on an extremely unorthodox tour before actor Harrison Ford advised her against launching the “expensive” fan experience.
The 31-year-old singer will release her ninth album Something Beautiful at the end of May, followed by a film of the same name in June, which features a surprise cameo from runway model Naomi Campbell.
Until the Indiana Jones star stepped in, the album’s “unique visual experience” was originally going to take the form of a series of live performances Cyrus intended to host “in the forest and at the pyramids” among other unspecified “intimate places that are filled with beauty”.
Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Cyrus explained: “I wanted to have that experience [bringing community back] for my fans, so that’s why I really wanted to have something where you don’t just, like, lay in your bed and say, ‘We’re gonna put that Miley thing on, I’m gonna kind of pay attention.’”
The singer referenced the Apple TV corporate drama series Severance, starring Adam Scott, in which office workers have undergone an operation to split their consciousness between their work selves and home selves in a bid to achieve work/life balance.
“You know when they walk in and their brain changes?” Cyrus asked Lowe. “That’s what I hope – I don’t hope to sever anyone’s mind – only a little, but I do just want them to walk into that theatre and something to change, to go, ‘I’m here now, I’m invested and this is my focus.’”
Cyrus, who hasn’t been on tour for over a decade, discussed her plans for the unconventional concert series called “Somewhere Beautiful” with Ford at a 2024 Disney Legend event held in her honour. She told him the plans involved “performing in intimate places that are filled with beauty” which “you can’t find in a stadium” that meant performing in “a cathedral in the middle of the forest”.
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The “Used to be Young” hitmaker showed Ford a PDF of her plans, which filled him with dread. “He goes, ‘You gonna bring a crew?’ He’s like, ‘Looks expensive.’ And I came back to the trailer, I was like, ‘Guys, we’re not performing in the forest anymore, Harrison Ford made a lot of sense.’
“That’s why I want to create this film, the film is my way of touring. That’s why I’m putting it into theatres because it’s something you can watch night after night after night and you get to discover, and you get a feel like you’re a part of a performance, but I don’t have to tax myself in that way.”
Cyrus’s forthcoming film, which she wrote and directed, is described as a “one-of-a-kind pop opera” and will include 13 songs from her ninth album.
Something Beautiful will premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival on 6 June.
