Ariana Grande on April 10. Photo:
VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty
On the ‘Sentimental Men’ podcast, Ariana Grande discussed her relationship with ‘Wicked’ and auditioning for the role of Glinda in the new movie
Filming Wicked was an emotional experience for Ariana Grande — and everybody else on set too, she says.
“Me, everyone, we all cried every day,” recalled Grande, 31, on the Friday, Nov. 1 episode of Broadway Podcast Network’s Sentimental Menpodcast.
Shouting out Wicked director Jon M. Chu and costars Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey, the “We Can’t Be Friends” singer said, “Everyone cried. It was really beautiful.” She added wryly, “So that was terrible.”
Sentimental Men, hosted by Quincy Brown and Kevin Bianchi, covers women in musical theater — with a specific focus on featuring actresses from the Broadway musical Wicked. With the first of Chu’s two big-screen adaptation hitting theaters Nov. 22, Grande and Erivo, 37, are among the newest guests joining to discuss the Tony-winning Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman musical inspired by novelist Gregory Maguire’s version of Oz.
Ariana Granda and Cynthia Erivo in ‘Wicked’.
Universal Pictures
“I love Judy Garland, and I’ve always been a huge Wizard of Oz person,” Grande said, remembering being stunned by “the untold story of the witches of Oz” at age 10. In addition to seeing the show on Broadway then, she met Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, the actresses who originated Elphaba the Wicked Witch and Glinda the Good Witch, during a backstage tour.
“Idina gave me a little green bracelet,” she recalled, while Chenoweth “gave me a little wand, which feels so full circle and insane. And a body wash that had glitter in it, and she said it was magical. And now I really believe that it was!”
Grande, who herself made a 2008 Broadway debut in the musical 13, plays Glinda in the new movie musical opposite Erivo as Elphaba. The movie costars Bailey as Fiyero, Jeff Goldblumas the Wizard, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Bowen Yang as Pfannee, Keala Settle as Miss Coddle, Ethan Slater as Boq and Michelle Yeohas Madame Morrible.
Ariana Grande in ‘Wicked’.
Universal Pictures
The lengthy Wicked casting process included almost as many tears as during filming, said Grande. She “had cried so much” during one chemistry read with potential Elphabas that she left her fake eyelashes behind. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s all, folks!’ I officially left everything else I had to give in this room.”
Before they were cast, Grande did not do a chemistry read with Erivo, who she called “the best, most formidable actress and singer that there is.” The two made a pact when they met, she added, to “know each other in that way, where I can just look at her and I know what she’s thinking… because without that, nothing else works.”
Erivo is set to appear on Sentimental Men on Friday, Nov. 8. Wicked: Part One is in theaters Nov. 22. Wicked: Part Two is slated for Nov. 26, 2025.
