Rodrigo: "Being your authentic self can be super hard, especially when you are like me and don’t always know exactly who you are and who you want to be. For a long time, I thought that in order to be worthy of being in someone’s life, I had to constantly be serving a purpose. I had to be the nice one, or the funny one, or something like that. Only recently did I find a group of people I could just exist with. People who I knew would love me even if I wasn’t entertaining or perfect by any means. That’s given me a lot of confidence. Not everyone is gonna like you, but finding a couple people who really, really love you for who you are is so much better. Knowing I have that support behind me makes being true to myself a lot easier."

Rodrigo: “I’m a teenage girl, I write about stuff that I feel really intensely – and I feel heartbreak and longing really intensely – and I think that’s authentic and natural. I don’t really understand what people want me to write about; do you want me to write a song about income taxes? How am I going to write an emotional song about that?”

Rodrigo: "Sometimes being in love with a person who doesn't love you the same way can feel kind of like degrading to you when you're wondering, 'oh maybe if I was prettier, or more interesting, or funnier,' then they wouldn't act this way, but it's totally not true, it has everything to do with them and nothing to do with you."

Rodrigo: "You just have to tell your story because, you know, humans are all so much more alike than we are different, and we're all feeling so much of the same things that we just don't talk about."

Rodrigo: “I’ve always been a real goody two-shoes. My music can be my form of teenage rebellion. There’s songs that are so angsty and intense.”

Rodrigo: “A hard thing for me to grapple with when this whole thing started happening is just, anyone can say anything. You just can’t control… That goes for anyone, like girls going to high school.”

Rodrigo: “That’s my ideal life. I just wanna be, like, 30, in a cool mid century-modern house with two babies and a husband, writing songs that I like, and having brunch with my girls on the weekends.”

Rodrigo: “From a younger age, I would get insecure because I felt like people weren’t being honest with me. I started to have that voice in my head being like: ‘That’s not good enough, don’t listen to them’, so I swung the opposite way of thinking everything I do is bad.”

Rodrigo: “My favorite people in the world are people I feel like will be totally honest with me and care about me enough to be like, ‘Oh, you can do better.’ It’s just about finding people you can trust and whose opinions you can trust.”

Rodrigo: "I literally will, like, listen to music that my idol made, watch all of their interviews, and then go back and be like, 'OK, I'm gonna, like, try to write a song, like, as if they were writing this song,' and it just, like, completely, like, broadens your horizons and helps make your music just, like, that much better."

Rodrigo: "I think, sometimes, you just have to work and write and create, even when you don't feel particularly inspired, because I think when you continuously show up, you, like, show the Universe that you are capable of bringing this idea to life and, you know, manifesting it in the way that it's supposed to be manifested."

Rodrigo: "It’s been something I’ve given a lot of thought to, that Disney-girl archetype. I feel like there’s such a clear trajectory for what that is, and there’s so many amazing artists who have done it before me."

Rodrigo: “I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself all the time. There were bits of that in the film where I talked about how I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t like this song. It can be better.’ And sometimes that can be hard.”

Rodrigo: "I know that I’m in love when I want my partner to be happy, even if that means that they’re not with me."

Rodrigo: "I think live music is such an important part of life and obviously something that we’ve all been really missing in our lives. I think it’s really fun as an artist to be able to cultivate experience for people."

Rodrigo: "I’m way too hard on myself and it’s past the point of being productive."

Rodrigo: “I remember turning 16, 17 and suddenly having all these doubts about myself and where I sit in the world and if people liked me. That felt like a distinct souring of that relationship.”

Rodrigo: "Pop music can mean so many different things, and I really love hearing so many different flavors of it these days."

Rodrigo: “I just think when you put them out into the world and they help people and make people happy … it’s not quite as devastating anymore. And it’s a very empowering thing.”

Rodrigo: "That’s the point of artists, to take something that’s so convoluted in your head and make it like something so simple that can be presented to the world."

Rodrigo: “That’s something I’ve always felt confused over while growing up. When you’re in the industry, you’re sort of treated like a child but expected to act like an adult. That’s a really terrifying thought, to think that I’m not allowed to make any mistakes, because I think that’s how you grow as a person. I’m no different from any other 18-year-old out there. I’m definitely going to make a lot of mistakes in my life and in my career probably too. That’s just life.”

Rodrigo: “We’re so much more alike than we are different. At the core of it all, we’re all feeling the same feelings of fear and sadness and loneliness and happiness and love.”

Rodrigo: "I mean I was very sad, it was a 17 year old girl going through my first real heartbreak, but I think a lot of people also think listening to my music that I'm really like a sad depressed person and that couldn't be farther from the truth, you know? Definitely not, at all, you know, crying on my bedroom floor all the time, but uh, yeah it's fun to write about stuff like that you know what I mean, like if i was just writing about how, you know, 'it's happy, going getting my iced latte every morning' like nobody would listen to it, it wouldn't be interesting."

Rodrigo: "I’ve never played a show with my own music in my life, so I’m really excited to do that one of these days. But if I could go back, I don’t think I’d change a thing. Honestly, quarantine probably contributed to its success. Lots of people are stuck in their houses, and, obviously, it’s been a hard, depressing, anxious time for all of us. I think this song is a sort of catharsis for a lot of people."

Rodrigo: “It’s interesting, heartbreaks when you’re 16 or 17, because you don’t yet have that perspective of knowing that life goes on and you’re gonna meet other people; that it wasn’t the only happy experience you’ll ever have.”

Rodrigo: “I think there’s a lot of strength in saying: I don’t know anything and I feel so insecure and unwanted.”

Rodrigo: "I’m just obsessed with emotions. I’m the most sensitive b*tch in the whole world. That’s what’s always drawn me to songwriting and singing and acting, is just how emotional you get to be and then be praised for that."

Rodrigo: “Our bodies should never be in the hands of politicians. I hope we can raise our voices to protect our right, to have a safe abortion, which is a right that so many people before us have worked so hard to get.”

Rodrigo: “My tastes are always changing, and I think that will be reflected in the next album.”

Rodrigo: "I feel like I’m constantly growing. I’ll be a developing artist until I’m 85. I think the best songwriters are like that. I always listen to my songs and try to think of ways I can strengthen them. But yeah, I just turned 18. I truly don’t really know who I totally am yet. I don’t know the way I like to dress. I don’t know the way I like to act around certain people. I don’t know what my purpose is. I don’t know what people are my true friends. I’m just going to keep on making music and I’m probably going to be really confused along the way, and I think that’s the beauty of it. I’m trying not to pretend like I have everything figured out because I sure as hell don’t."

Rodrigo: “Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It’s sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process.”

Rodrigo: “It was really cool to watch not only teenage girls that are going through the same thing that I was going through, but also older, straight guys, relate to it and be like, ‘Oh, it brings me back to when I broke up with my girlfriend in high school.’”

Rodrigo: "I have just always been a big songwriter. And my biggest thing was, 'I just want to be taken seriously as a songwriter and as an artist.' You could do interviews forever about how you want to be taken seriously, but for me, the real thing was, 'Let’s just let the music speak for itself.' I think people can sense that I’m not trying to like somebody that I’m not. I did grow up on Disney Channel. I am sort of this goody two shoes. And I think shying away from that would do my art an injustice, too."

Rodrigo: “I'm never the type of person who's like, ‘Oh, it's the girl's fault that this guy did something wrong to me. It's never made sense logically in my head, and I don't subscribe to that mindset.”

Rodrigo: “I sometimes get DMs from little girls being like, ‘I’ve never seen someone who looked like me in your position.’ And I’m literally going to cry. Like, just thinking about it. I feel like I grew up never seeing that. Also, it was always like, ‘pop star’ — that’s a white girl.”

Rodrigo: “I had to learn how to dissociate myself with what people say about me in that regard because at the end of the day it's truly none of your business if you do your work and do the best job that you can.”

Rodrigo: “Sometimes when you have a lot of success really quickly, it can scare people and make people feel different. That was an interesting thing to learn. I’m figuring it all out.”

Rodrigo: “My favorite people in the world are people I feel like will be totally honest with me and care about me enough to be like, ‘Oh, you can do better.' It’s just about finding people you can trust and whose opinions you can trust.”

[On how to get over someone]

Rodrigo: "Besides cutting off all contact, I think it’s important to not only forgive them, but forgive yourself for letting everything happen. That’s what I’ve learned."

Rodrigo: “It’s fun to look back on those memories and know that they’re not real and happening right now, but you still experienced them.”

Rodrigo: "I feel really seen by the public for some reason. For so long, I was playing a character, and people would come up to me and be like, 'I love this character that you play and the show that you’re a part of.' And That’s amazing, but recently people have started coming up to me and being like, 'I really love your song. It helped me get through a really hard time.' That’s just such a big honor. I feel like they can see me for who I really am, not this character that I’m playing or this script that I’m reading. And yeah, like you said, it’s being received really well by adults, too, which is crazy. When it first came out, my therapist called me and she was like, 'Girl, I’ve been married for 10 years, I’m 40, but this song makes me cry.'"

Rodrigo: “I hope people know that deep down, all that I do is write songs and talk about how I feel, and that’s the most important thing to me. Everything else, I think, is not so important.”

[On shifting cultural perspectives with her debut album, Sour]

Rodrigo: “Something I’m really proud of is that this record talks about emotions that are hard to talk about or aren’t really socially acceptable especially for girls: anger, jealousy, spite, sadness, they’re frowned-upon as bitchy and moaning and complaining or whatever. But I think they’re such valid emotions.”

Rodrigo: “People tell you things they think you want to hear. I really appreciate honest opinions and people who won’t compliment me in order to get what they want.”

Rodrigo: “It’s really toxic for young girls to open their Snapchat app and see the articles about young women who are just sharing their art and existing in the world, and watching them being torn apart for doing absolutely nothing.”

[On beauty standards]

Rodrigo: “I think representation is all about adding. I don’t think it’s about taking anything away from anyone.”

Rodrigo: “I sometimes get DMs from little girls being like, ‘I’ve never seen someone who looked like me in your position.’ And I’m literally going to cry. Like, just thinking about it. I feel like I grew up never seeing that. Also, it was always like, ‘pop star’ — that’s a white girl.”

[On what she looks for in fashion]

Rodrigo: "I look for quality, and I like pieces that are kind of funky and weird."

Rodrigo: “I’ve been sort of growing through that this year, but I’ve just been trying to remember that I write songs because I love them. I feel lucky I get to do that and be a songwriter and a performer for a living. …. At the end of the day, I feel it doesn’t have too much to do with me.”

Rodrigo: “I just feel like sometimes there’s so much noise and criticism and weird things going on in the world.”

Rodrigo: “As a society we definitely have to reexamine the way we treat women in the entertainment industry, and not just for ourselves — it’s unhealthy for young girls to be looking at all that stuff in the media. It paints a bad picture.”

Elle: Though she doesn’t mention her ex’s name, she’s not afraid to get into other details, like how she was crying in the parking lot when she was writing and how she “felt like my world was ending every day.”

Teen Vogue: She got straight A’s and was a self-described teacher’s pet. Straight-laced, she says.

Teen Vogue: On her Teen Vogue cover shoot set, she is poised and professional, taking notes and feedback and working them into her poses and facial expressions in a way that seems effortless.

Teen Vogue: You never see signs of fatigue or stress cross her face. Here, she’s working, trying her best. On her bedroom floor, where she pens many of her songs, she’s creating, searching for the next right version of herself.

Teen Vogue: If you’re predisposed to being hard on yourself, how do you know what is useful vs. what will send you spiraling? If you’re trying to do everything right and foresee bad moves before you make them, how do you cope with mistakes? “I just had this conversation with my therapist yesterday morning,” Olivia says. “Sh*t’s real.”

Teen Vogue: When she gets low, she hangs out with people who know her, who see the goofy Olivia at 3 a.m., laughing at nothing. When she imagines her future, it’s not one in which she mentions fame or adoration; it’s one where she’s with family, maybe writing songs for other people, the way Carole King and Julia Michaels have thrived.

Teen Vogue: Here’s what Olivia wants to talk about more than anything else: what she can control, what brings her closer to knowing who she is and what boundaries she can draw.

The Irish Times: She made most of Sour with Daniel Nigro, the first producer she tried out with who told her a song wasn’t good enough.