Ariana Grande stars in the film adaptation of Wicked as Glinda the Good Witch.
When audiences see the movie in theaters, they will notice that the “We Can’t Be Friends” singer uses her full name, Ariana Grande-Butera, in the film’s credits.
In a new interview, Grande shares why she changed her name for the film.
“I just feel like this experience was such a homecoming for me,” Grande said in an interview with The Streaming Service. “I feel like I came home to myself in a lot of ways, through what I learned from Glinda, from Elphaba. That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10-years-old, and it felt like a really lovely way of honoring that. It felt really full circle, and it just felt like something I wanted to do.”
Wicked will be released on November 22 in the U.S. and the U.K. The musical film will be released in two parts, with the second part dropping on December 25, 2025. The Jon M. Chu-directed film also stars Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle, and Peter Dinklage.
Grande recently said that she understood the initial criticism she received after her casting in the musical film adaptation was confirmed.
“This is something I loved so much about auditioning for Wicked,” Grande said on the Sentimental Men podcast. “It has to be earned. Anything on this scale, being a part of anything, it’s not just given because they know for one thing. So, it’s fun to kind of have the challenge of reframing people’s perception and doing the work to earn your way back into the other spaces.”
Grande added, “I felt a little bit of the initial nervousness or the sort of preconceived notions about what I might be able to deliver or not deliver, or why I would be wrong or whatever.”
