Photo: Ariana Grande TikTok
Ariana Grandemay be playing her first leading role on the big screen, but trust and believe — she’s still a singer.
On Friday, the 29-year-old Grammy winner — who is currently shooting the two-installment film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical hit,Wicked— shared a video to TikTok responding to critics asking her, “Why aren’t you still a singer?”
She went on to perform an a cappella cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the Oscar-winning tune fromThe Wizard of Oz. Of course, the 1939 movie famously inspiredauthor Gregory Maguire to pen the best-sellingWizard of Ozprequel bookWicked, which book writer Winnie Holzman and composer Stephen Schwartz then adapted into the stage musical.
“Wanted to sing you a little something but don’t want to sing anything that is not “Ozian” at the moment,” Grande captioned the video with a smile. “Keeping to my little bubble for now.”
“Done with lots of love,” she added.
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Grande also posted the video to her Instagram page. In the clip, she wore her hair pulled back inside a pink hooded chunky sweater, noting that she was “mid getting ready” and was “hiding” the blonde locks she wears in the film for her character, Glinda.
“She is and always will be a singer, she just happens to be able to do more than that!!!” Erivo, 36, wrote. “Now…as you were…we’re working!!!”
Erivo, who plays Glinda’s friend/foe Elphaba inWicked, has been bonding with Grande since the November 2021 announcement of their casting in the upcoming Jon M. Chu films.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.Leon Bennett/WireImage; Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
While at the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards red carpet last February, Erivo told E!’s Laverne Cox that she is “very excited” about the project.
“Before I even went to do the audition I knew that music like the back of my hand. I was doing it at drama school and sneaking up to the piano room and just learning it all,” she recalled. “So I think it’s about learning the music, learning the story, finding our sort of way through it.”
She went on to elaborate on their budding friendship. “Ariana and I have been meeting and chatting and talking and building our own relationship because we know that it’s a sisterhood and we want to be ready and prepared to be there for one another,” she said.
“It’s the most delightful thing ever. We sat for like three hours on the floor of my house and just chatted and talked about everything.”
Meanwhile, Grande’s post comes a day after her ex,Mac Miller, would have turned 31. The rapperdied of an accidental overdoseon Sept. 7, 2018 at the age of 26.
He and Grande dated for two years before going their separate ways in May 2018.
In the years following his death, Grande has honored Miller multiple times, including in a May 2020 conversation with Beats 1’s Zane Lowe for Apple Music.
“Nothing mattered more to him than music, ever. And he was the kind of person who woke up and rolled into the studio, tumbled out of bed, into the studio next door,” Grande told Lowe. “Nothing was more important. Talk about losing track of time and forgetting to eat, [having to] remind yourself to take care of yourself and be a person. He was a person who gave literally every single second of his thought and time and life to his music.”
The “Stuck with U” singer also praised Miller for his dedication to his craft. “I think that’s so evident in what he’s left us with and just how many incredible and different bodies of work, everything fromBlue Slide Park,K.I.D.S., to all the way throughDivine Feminine,toSwimming, toCircles, to everything in between,” she said.
Circleswas the rapper’s final project, which his family posthumously released in January 2020.
“It’s just such a beautiful gift, I think, that he kind of touched the world with. I think the thing he’d want most is for us to just appreciate it and not forget about it,” Grande concluded.
source: people.com
