Wicked star Ariana Grande grew up in a musical family and can't remember a time in her life when she wasn't singing. "As soon as I could speak, I was singing," she says.
The family's karaoke machine was a fixture in the living room, obstructing the furniture. As soon as she got home from school, Grande would pick up the microphone, and her parents did the same at the end of the workday. From the Beatles to Sinatra, Celine Dion to the Spice Girls, Grande's family, including her grandparents, sang it all.
"I always loved the divas [with] the big, big voices," Grande says. "I looked up to Whitney and Mariah and Celine endlessly. I think that's a large part of the reason why I learned to sing was just because that's who I was singing along with."
Grande got her big break as an actor in 2008 when she starred as Charlotte in the Broadway musical 13. In 2010, she landed the role of Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon TV series Victorious and the spin-off series Sam & Cat. Grande is also a two-time Grammy Award-winning pop singer.
Grande worked with a vocal coach for three months before her first Wicked audition, training herself to sing in a coloratura, a soprano placement she describes as "completely different" from the voice she uses in her pop music.
"That operatic sound needed to be strengthened and found in my voice and trained to become authentic sounding," she says. "And what was really fun and interesting about that was that I went to get my vocal cords checked at the beginning of my training process to see if I could see a difference and like the muscle, like just how the shape is. You can actually track the cords changing shape while I was training."
Wicked is nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best picture, best supporting actress for Grande and best actress for Cynthia Erivo. Grande describes her involvement with the film as a "beautiful gift."
"I can't think of a time when I wanted something the way I wanted to play this role," she says. "It's an incredible privilege to be a part of this version of it and to have it be so accessible to so many people and to see the response be what it's been. I think so many new theater kids have been born."
Interview highlights
On her friendship and working relationship with Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo
It's something that was important to us from the very beginning, was to build something real and to know that we could have a safe space in each other for this journey because it was going to be tremendous. We knew it was going to be years and years of some of the hardest work of our lives, and it's something that we started building from the day we were cast. We FaceTimed and congratulated each other and the announcement happened and the celebratory dinner happened. I was a fan of hers, but it got very real, very quickly. I reached out and I said, "OK, as we're digging into the contracts, let's stay in touch, let's call each other. I want to be there for you and help make sure you're getting everything you need and I want us to go at everything together because there's going to be so much that is very high stakes about this production that we're jumping into."
On the preconceived notions about her ability to play Glinda
I felt like I had everything working against me when it comes to this role. I genuinely felt like I had so much to prove so that I could earn the possibility, like earn the openness from Jon [Chu], from the casting directors, from the producers to maybe see a possible chance that I could disappear into this person. …
I know what's required of Glinda. I know she's funny. I know it's high notes, and I know that maybe some people who don't know her well enough would think that I'm the perfect fit. But that's just kind of scratching the surface. This role is a massive undertaking, and I have to kind of be able to earn this and have every tool in my box available to me, to use, so that every piece of her that is emotional, that is dramatized, that is insecure, that is why Glinda is the way she is, so reliant upon external validation and the popularity and how important that is to her — that's a real person under there with a real beating heart and where she goes from Part 1, her arc in Act 2 and what she experiences and you know, it requires a lot this role.
On how she handles inner voices of self-doubt
You have to kind of realize nerves are great. It means you care so much and that your ego can be left far, far, far behind in a faraway land so that you can do beautiful work and so that you know you care. You're acknowledging this and using those nerves as positive carbonation for the performance and also being able to put a little flashlight on your little fears or monsters in your head and say like:
"Hi, thank you for protecting me. ... However, I have work to do. It would be beautiful if you could please step outside and give me coffee. Maybe come back later? You know you're totally going to come back later. I know that. So thank you for stepping away for a little bit, 'cause I have to get to know Glinda for now." …
It's all a mental dance. So it's important to learn how to navigate those guys and be able to embrace and also keep them where they're supposed to be.
On why she and Erivo insisted on doing the vocals live on set
The emotional context of what we're singing about sometimes can evoke the performance to be different, take to take. … And also with the comedic elements. I love to improv. I love to surprise people. So I also, as Glinda, kind of required that freedom to be able to do whatever felt most honest and "Glinda" in the moment. So the material demands it from both of us, but also we are singers. We love to sing. ... I think it would have felt dishonest to not sing live for this. And also, there's even more. You know, there are so many beautiful Glindas and Elphabas who have done this on Broadway and the West End on tour eight shows a week. So in solidarity with them, if we have to do something — 28 takes in a row live — we will do it. We are part of a beautiful coven.
On writing the raunchy pop song 34+35
It started and ended as a total joke just because I just found the strings so lush and so majestic and Disney-princess sounding. I fell in love with those strings, and that was like what I knew I wanted to write over, but I just thought, how funny would it be? I love when a sense of humor can exist within songwriting, too. That's important to me. But I thought it would be so funny if maybe the dirtiest song we ever wrote would be over these, like, Disney princess-sounding lush strings. How fun would that be? That was a very fun and silly moment. …
I think it's always so beautiful when female artists celebrate and embrace sexual expression or their bodies or their truth or whatever through music, even when it is naughty sometimes. ... Boys do it. So why can't we?
So many brilliant women are writing such spectacular music right now. It's such an amazing time for women in music. I feel like there are so many beautiful new, young, up and coming artists that I've loved listening to this year. Like it's been just a cool thing to watch. I love it. We're in good company.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Thea Chaloner produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Copyright 2025 NPR
