Pop-star and two time Grammy award winning artist Ariana Grande has recently been leaning more towards the art of acting rather than singing. Grande got her start at the age of 15 when she secured a role in the musical “13.” A famous role of hers, ‘Cat’ in the Nickelodeon show “Victorious” further propelled her career forward, allowing her to gain enough popularity to pursue a professional musical career.
Over the years Grande has released seven studio albums, her most recent one “Eternal Sunshine” released in March of 2024. The album was well-received, with her song “We can’t be friends (wait for your love)” reaching the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. However, her role as ‘Glinda’ in the movie adaptation of “Wicked”, released on Nov. 22 of this year, has reignited her passion for the stage. In addition to Grande’s personal revelation, her push back into acting has also reignited society’s love for her. Even people who never identified as a fan, are discussing her acting and praising it for being better than they expected.
According to “Ariana Grande Says She’s Taking A Step Back From the Music Industry to Focus on Acting”, Grande has expressed her plan going forward regarding her career as a whole. “I am going to say something so scary, it is going to scare my fans and everyone. I love them, and they will deal and we will be here forever. I am always going to do pop stuff, I pinky promise, but I do not think doing it at the rate that I have been doing for the past 10 years is where I see the next 10 years.”
Grande is not completely removing herself from the music department–a scene which she has been incredibly familiar with for years–but instead is simply refocusing her lens on a different field of art. This shift does not feel out of place or random, it actually makes quite a lot of sense, due to Grande’s role in “Wicked,” which has been her dream role ever since she was a child. Having finally fulfilled that ambition, Grande finds herself feeling comfortable and excited about acting.
As “Ariana Grande reveals “scary” plan to focus on acting for the next 10 years” shares, “I think I love acting; I love musical theater. Reconnecting with this part of myself… I love comedy, and it heals me to do that–finding roles to use these parts of myself,” Grande said. As an impressive vocalist herself, Grande is already well-versed in singing and her own vocal range. One would think that would make a smooth transition into the musical centered role of Glinda, but in reality it was a completely different experience.
In an article titled “Ariana Grande Had to ‘Completely Erase Pop Star Ari’ For WICKED: How She ‘Deconstructed’ Herself to Play Glinda”, Ariana shared that, “I worked every day with [my vocal coaches] to transform my voice. My singing voice, everything about me I had to kind of deconstruct to prove to them that I could handle taking on this other person. I had to completely erase pop star Ari.”
It is not just the singing voice that had to be adjusted for Grande’s role, but also her very personality itself. The brand of ‘Ariana Grande’ that she has built has become recognizable and beloved over the years, but the art of acting requires a different persona. In order to accurately portray the character, Grande has to move away from her pop-star mentality and let her acting skills come front and center.
Her resurgence in the acting world may not only come from her passion for her current project, but also from some feelings she has had regarding music. Music is something Grande is genuinely interested in, but after years of being in the music industry, the experiences she has had have taken a toll.
She shared in “Ariana Grande Says She’s Taking A Step Back From the Music Industry to Focus on Acting” regarding her 2020 album “Positions”, “I just remember that really put me in a cage of judging every single piece. I scrapped so many things that I was going to put out. Now, people love it and it is the best thing I ever made. I am like, ‘What is that? How is that fair?”
The public’s perception of Grande’s chosen art form, especially when it is a negative reaction, can affect her mindset about releasing music. It is easy to get discouraged with all the noise and rumors that can circulate online, from wondering who certain lyrics are about, to simply harshly critiquing the music itself. These aspects can draw artists away from a continuous out-put of music, instead drawing them into other artforms or career decisions. Conveniently enough, Grande’s decision to gravitate towards acting has helped heal wounds from the past.
As Grande reveals in “Ariana Grande Had to ‘Completely Erase Pop Star Ari’ For WICKED: How She ‘Deconstructed’ Herself to Play Glinda”, “I changed and healed a lot through taking space from [music]. I think I learned so much from Glinda and through Glinda. I kind of healed a lot of parts of myself alongside and through her and it actually helped me heal a lot of my own personal, weird stuff I had with my relationship to music.” Through Grande’s role as Glinda, she was able to recover parts of herself that she had lost, as well as acquire new perspectives. Acting as a medium cannot only be a way to express yourself, but discover different aspects of your personality you would not have realized otherwise.
Grande’s stress surrounding her music career is what allowed her to jump back into acting. Although it is true that she had previously focused on producing albums instead of landing roles and chasing starhood in Hollywood, Grande had never forgotten her roots in musical theater and roles of that nature. She continues to explain in “Ariana Grande Had to ‘Completely Erase Pop Star Ari’ For WICKED: How She ‘Deconstructed’ Herself to Play Glinda”, “I am a person who started on Broadway and I have always been a musical theatre person and I have always been an actress. I have missed acting,” she detailed. “I think having so much time with a character, instead of this characterized version of myself, was really nice.”
Similarly to Grande’s comment about having to turn off a ‘pop-star Ari’ type of performance, she had to spend time and develop a completely separate character. As opposed to the seemingly effortless confidence and perfection of ‘Ariana Grande’, the character Glinda has noticeable character flaws and complexities. Errors and mistakes are something not associated with the images of a pop-star, making the shift from a performer to an actor even more prominent.