Oscar nominated Ariana Grande, is a well-known pop star who has recently been in the limelight for Jon M. Chu’s new movie, “Wicked.” According to Billboard, the film has already grossed over $634.4 million worldwide since it was released on Nov. 22. Now that Grande has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, it’s time to dive deep down and discover how she ended up where she is now with her role of Glinda and some of the steps she took.
Grande started her career on the stage, landing a role in the Broadway musical 13 as a teenager before making her big break as Cat Valentine. She eventually started making music and released hit after hit, making a name for herself. Grande saw the original Wicked on Broadway as a child at age 7. She met Kristin Chenoweth at the show, and the original Glinda and Grande got the chance to sing “Popular” to her. Watching her talk about her interaction with Chenoweth made me see an entirely different side of Grande. She talks about how her Wicked obsession rooted from this interaction and it’s crazy how one thing branched out into Grande eventually playing the role of Glinda. Grande talked about in a recent interview how this interaction and getting the chance to see the play grew her Wicked obsession, and ever since, she has manifested playing the role of Glinda.
With this, she would also make many Tweets on Twitter, posting, “Loved seeing Wicked again…amazing! Made me realize how badly I want to play Glinda at some point in my life! #DreamRole,” Grande wrote. To put this message in perspective, she posted this in 2011 and even talked about it in an interview with Kidd Kraddick around 2013, preaching her love for playing the role of Glinda and something she strived to achieve in life. As with this interview in another interview from the Zach Sang show, Grande said she’d do anything to be in Wicked and talks quite a lot about how much she loves it. “Whenever I’m nervous about anything, I listen back and forth to Wicked,” Grande said.
Before seeing Wicked, I thought I’d only see the pop-star artist Grande perform on the screen. But I personally saw a whole other side of her as she embodied the role of Glinda, almost as if she was a completely different person. Many people criticize her for her looks. The public says she’s too skinny, her hair color doesn’t match her style, her voice and her overall personality. But, I believe people fail to understand the emotion and passion that went into creating this role of Glina and how much Grande worked to achieve such a big role.
