It’s a rare feat to be nominated back-to-back for the same role at any awards show, but Ariana Grande just received her second consecutive nomination for her performance as Glinda in the Wicked movies.
“It is definitely just as exciting [as last year’s nomination] and kind of blindsiding. You don’t expect something like this, let alone [for it] to happen twice for the same role,” Grande tells The Hollywood Reporter following her nomination. “So I’m just deeply honored. I’m just really moved by it.”
Going into her second consecutive year on the awards circuit, the actress plans on taking a few things she learned during last year’s run as she navigates the upcoming months.
“Something that I was so grateful for last year was that I just felt really present, and I was so excited to meet so many actors that I really respect and whose work that I really love, and have such human conversations and positive experiences [with],” she notes. “I remember meeting Kate Winslet was one of the most exciting things in the world. She was just so kind and warm and just had the most amazing, encouraging words to share. And it’s moments like that that I think people don’t get to know about or see, really, that are so special, that I’ll always cherish and take with me. I hope to see some of the friends that I made.”
On the words Winslet shared, Grande says, “I think I want to keep it in my heart, but it was a really sweet connection, and it was just really wonderful. I remember how lovely she was whenever our categories came up: A hand hold, a wink, a squeeze of the hand. It was just beautiful. She’s my favorite actress, so that was very surreal.”
Wicked: For Good leans into Glinda’s perspective more after Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) leaves Emerald City following her meeting with the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). The sequel is darker as the characters reckon with things they’ve learned, and Glinda, as well as Elphaba, has changed. Grande says she’s finally excited to talk about how they filmed the two movies back to back, often times filming scenes from both movies on the same day.
“A lot of people ask me how it’s possible that both were shot at the same time, and I can think of so many days off the top of my head where, like the first half of the day was young Glinda and young Elphaba in the attic of ‘Defying Gravity,’ singing the first minute and half of the song, and then after lunch, we came back to shoot me at the end of movie two, in my pink bubble dress, holding the Grimmery, going up the stairs to sing the finale,” explains Grande. “So the finale in part two and the first half of my part in ‘Defying Gravity, that was shot in the same day. It’s things like that that I’m so eager to finally get to share with people and talk about, because it was such a delicious challenge, the bouncing back and forth between her light and her darkness, her pain and her comedy, and all of the beautiful things that make her who she is. It was the most incredibly and deliciously challenging work, and I loved it, and I would do it again every day.”
Another scene she remembers shooting is the culminating door scene in the second film: when the door scene is being filmed, with her and Erivo on either side. “That was the end of that day. And then my side, my point of view watching her melting, was actually a few weeks later. So it’s little things like that where we had to just drop in whenever the schedule allowed for us to get those pieces and make sure that they connected. It was really cool.”
Playing Glinda had always been her dream. Now that the Wicked tour is coming to an end, what’s next for the actress?
“There are a few things floating around in my head, but I would love to do theater as well, and it’s something that I’m excited about,” Grande, who will next star in Focker in-Law, says. “I think as someone who started on Broadway, I would love to be on stage in that way again, and exercise a different muscle and continue to tell stories in different ways. I’m so lucky to be here, and I love acting. It’s really fun.”
See the full list of Golden Globe nominations here.
Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that also owns The Hollywood Reporter.
