Despite her deep love for music, Rashida Jones intentionally chose not to follow in her father Quincy Jones’ footsteps.
The 48-year-old actress explained her decision not to pursue a music career on the latest episode of the SmartLess podcast to hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett.
“I love [music] so much and I kind of sing for fun. I’ve written for fun. I’ve sung backup on some albums and things like that,” Rashida said at the 22:05 mark in the video below, saying she lent her vocals to Maroon 5’s first two albums, 2002’s Songs About Jane and It Won’t Be Soon Before Long in 2007.
However, the Parks and Recreation actress says she doesn’t feel confident enough in her abilities to fully pursue it.
“My dad’s a musical genius, that’s the last thing I wanna do is try my hand at that. But I love it, I have a deep ache for music and I just don’t ever feel like I’m good enough to do it, like, I’ll never be good enough to do it,” said Rashida.
It’s easy to understand why she would feel this way, especially considering her 91-year-old father produced Michael Jackson’s Thriller album in 1982 and is widely regarded as the best selling album of all time.
Instead, Rashida has focused on her acting career and directed a Netflix documentary, Quincy, to capture her father’s extraordinary life and personality.
“He’s so well documented, he’s so accomplished that it’s almost impossible to spend any time storytelling about who he is as a person to cover so much ground with just what he’s contributed to the world and culture,” she said further into the podcast.
“I wanted to do something that felt like it captured his personality ‘cuz nothing ever has and so that was kind of the goal.”