An alternate lead

While Ariana Grande dazzled as Glinda, the singer initially wanted to play Elphaba in Wicked, and had sung Defying Gravity during her audition for the character.

Jon M. Chu recalled: “We were getting mixed messages. I was like, ‘Of course she's coming in for Glinda.’

“And then my casting director was like, ‘No, I think she thinks she's coming in for Elphaba.’ I'm like: ‘That was not the plan.’ "And they're like, ‘Well, she prepped it.’ She was being nice to me, and I was being nice to her. We just let her do it.

“But in my mind I was like, ‘Why is she singing Elphaba right now?’ Maybe because she's sung those in the past, but to me, she was always a Glinda.

“We didn't know each other well enough to be like, ‘Alright, let's clear up the telephone game here. We are here for Glinda. Right?’”

Grande later admitted she “had an inkling in [her] heart” that Glinda was a better match for her than Elphaba, which was ultimately given to Cynthia Erivo.