Austin Butler did not always sound like Elvis. We know this as a fact. That didn’t make his Elvis awards-season run, in which he used his Elvis voice for eight months straight, any less fun. Nor does it make it any less funny that he’s seemingly still stuck in Elvis mode. There’s a rich history of actors making a strange commitment to character during their press tours, awards-related or otherwise: Jim Carrey becoming Andy Kaufman, Bradley Cooper becoming Maestro, whatever random voice Tom Hardy decides to do every year. When this happens, often the characters in question are based on real people for whom the actors have adopted a reverential mimicry that teeters on possession on and off set. This awards season, not only is this happening again, but the walls of Method performance and press tour have blurred together. All of this raises two pertinent questions: Has Ariana Grande become Glinda the Good Witch? And does Ariana Grande think Glinda is real?
For two years, we’ve watched Grande transform into Glinda. Yes, she’s blonde, but the embodiment transcends that. As Grande told Teen Vogue, “I needed to disappear into this role.” Glinda — first portrayed onscreen by Billie Burke in Victor Fleming’s adaptation of The Wizard of Oz and first played onstage in Wicked by Kristin Chenoweth — is defined by a few broad-strokes character traits: a saccharine sweetness, a penchant for public good, and always wearing pink. Glinda, as she exists in Wicked, is still a good witch, so to speak, but is motivated by popularity: a true-blue “cool girl” who couldn’t be more self-conscious. She’s doe-eyed and eager and preening with Grande adopting a mid-century affectation, à la Gloria Grahame in Oklahoma! There’s a kind of tongue-in-cheek girlishness to the character that Grande’s taken on in interviews. She’s innocent, but not that innocent; kind-hearted, but not that kind-hearted; funny, but knows she’s being funny and wants to make sure you’re laughing with and not at her.
Part of what feels so dramatic about Grande’s Wicked press tour is that there’s ample evidence of what she was like before all this. While her voice and intonation aren’t markedly different, she’s definitely pitched herself up in her regular speaking voice. We know, by now, that Grande is rarely ever not in pink, but her commitment — unlike, say, Margot Robbie’s in Barbie — goes deeper than red-carpet fashion. Once you watch Wicked, it becomes clear that Grande is performing a full-body extension of her character on the press trail — a hammy personality akin to the likes of Barbra Streisand or Sutton Foster. Whereas past leading musical ladies have tried to contour their character to their own personality (consider, perhaps, when Emma Watson made sure Belle was wearing boots and not heels), Grande has taken Glinda’s affectations as her own. Just as she spends much of the movie on the verge of tears, so too has she spent most of the press tour crying.
Grande’s commitment to form and character is admirable and hilarious, depending on your tolerance for all things pink and green, but what’s the larger endgame here? Is she going to be doing this for the next calendar year? Is she, like Austin Butler before her, stuck like this forever?
For what it’s worth, Grande has a solid chance of nabbing an Oscar nomination for her scene-stealing performance. Could she actually win? If they gave out Oscars for press tours, very possibly. When it comes to acting, however, the Academy historically prefers to honor a body of work, or a display of environmental or prosthetics-related suffering, or, most ideally, an actor who walks away with their whole movie. Pop stars who give excellent turns in major films fare worse — no one’s really broken the mold since Cher won for Moonstruck. Lady Gaga lost for A Star is Born; neither Justin Timberlake nor Jennifer Lopez could get nominated for The Social Network or Hustlers. Does anyone even remember that Taylor Swift popped up in a David O. Russell movie? But we’ve never seen a pop star embrace a part more wholeheartedly than Grande has. Maybe this is the exact alchemy needed for her to walk away with Best Supporting Actress early next year.
More than anything, however, she seems to be having a lot of fun with all this pink and all these little jokes. After a long explanation of Glinda’s motivation on Las Culturistas, Grande interrupts herself as she starts to tear up. “Oh my God, annoying!” she says, rolling her eyes at herself, and for just a second, it feels like we’re all in on the joke.
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