Ariana Grande John Nacion/Variety/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment "Professor" Ariana Grande, our guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of an audience of 500 film students at Chapman University, is having an incredible year (again). Hot on the heels of her acclaimed portrayal of Gahlinda - or Glinda - in the 2024 blockbuster film adaptation of the Broadway hit musical Wicked, she returned to the part in its 2025 sequel, Wicked: For Good, and garnered even better notices, as well as nominations for Critics Choice, Golden Globe and Actor awards. She is now poised to become just the seventh performer ever to land Oscar noms in multiple years for playing the same character, and only the second to do so in back-to-back years. Related Stories Movies 'Awards Chatter' Pod: Guillermo del Toro on His 50-Year Journey to 'Frankenstein' and Being "Weird As F***" Movies 'Awards Chatter' Pod: Gwyneth Paltrow on 'Marty Supreme,' Goop and Being Such a Polarizing Person Remarkable accomplishments are nothing new for the 32-year-old, who, among other things... has been named one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world twice was Spotify's most streamed female artist of the 2010s - despite only making her debut three years into the decade was the first artist ever to have the lead single of each of her first four albums debut in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 has had a total of 23 singles crack the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, nine of which went to #1 - "Die for You," "Thank U, Next," "7 Rings," "Save Your Tears," "Stuck with U," "Rain on Me," "Positions," "Yes, And?" and "We Can't Be Friends" has had nine albums crack the top 10 of the Billboard 200, six of which went to #1 - Yours Truly, My Everything, Sweetener, Thank U, Next, Positions and Eternal Sunshine has been nominated for 19 Grammys - including a pending nom for best pop duo/group performance, for "Defying Gravity," shared with her Wicked and Wicked: For Good costar Cynthia Erivo - winning two, best pop vocal album for Sweetener in 2019 and best pop duo/group performance for "Rain on Me" in 2021 was ranked #9 on Billboard's 2024 list of the 25 greatest pop stars of the 21st century, with the magazine hailing her "enduring, generational talent" was ranked #43 on Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the 200 greatest singers of all time Just as remarkably, she has endured - and been there for her loyal fans, known as "Arianators" - through thick and thin, including tragedies that would have felled many others, such as a 2017 terrorist attack outside of a concert that she had just completed in Manchester, England, which claimed the lives of 22 attendees; and the premature loss of a loved one and collaborator, Mac Miller, in 2018. Indeed, she emerged as a beacon of light in the film versions of Wicked, an offshoot, of course, of The Wizard of Oz, with which she fell in love when she was still Ariana Grande-Butera, a diminutive community theater kid from Boca Raton, Florida, who loved Judy Garland's Dorothy in the 1939 film and then, while on a trip to New York with her family when she was 10, saw a performance of Wicked on Broadway with the original cast that mesmerized her. When the film adaptation finally began to come together, she fought to be considered for it. When she got the part of Glinda, she insisted on playing it as it has always been, as opposed to having it tailored for her. And when she played the part, she brought to it a rare understanding of the pros and cons of being "Popular" - and crushed it. Ariana Grande in Wicked: For Good. Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures Over the course of this conversation, Grande reflected on a wide variety of topics. You can hear the full conversation higher on this page or via any podcast app. Key excerpts, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, appear below. On her early dreams of Broadway, which led to her debut on the Great White Way in Jason Robert Brown's musical 13 "I hoped to be a Broadway performer my whole life long. That's what I thought would happen. But my dear friend Liz Gillies, who played Lucy in 13, she and I put ourselves on tape for an untitled Nickelodeon project while we were doing 13 on Broadway. And the day after 13 closed, we had a callback for the untitled Nickelodeon project. So we both got on a plane together with our moms and flew to LA and had our first callbacks for whate ventually became Victorious." On her own music coming into the picture "While I was shooting Victorious and Sam & Cat, I was simultaneously working on ym first album, Yours Truly, the whole time. We would shoot these long days on set, working full adult hours, 12-hour days, and then we would go to the studio and write music. And I sort of coll