“There were a lot of opportunities that came my way that would not have been the right choice — the low-hanging fruit, doing things just because it’s a thing to do,” she said about entering this next phase of her career. “But I wanted to do quality projects, cool things that made me excited, and I didn’t care if I only had one line. Saying no is as important as saying yes.”

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Were you terrified of twirling 40 feet in the air?

A lot of times we’re hooked up to wires. When I first did my trapeze, I had been training on another rig that I had gotten very used to, and I had a net. Then when I showed up to set, the rigs were 15 feet taller and there was no net, and that freaked me out. But you know what? I did it.

Did you do anything special to land the role of Anne?

At the time, [the composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul] were up and coming. They hadn’t done “La La Land” yet. They played me a couple of the songs, including the one [“Rewrite the Stars”] that I would sing with Zac. And I asked: “Hey, is it cool if I record my own voice on the record? I want to show you guys what I can do.” So I played it for the director, and Michael loved it, and I had a really great reading with Zac.

How did you and Zac learn to trust each other?

On the first day, they harnessed us together and lifted us into the air, so we had to quite literally start holding each other’s weight and lifting each other up. We became a team very, very quickly.

And then you had to sing together on top of all that. I take it you recorded the soundtrack first and then lip synced.