Ariana Grande refused to make Wicked song more 'hip-hop'
Chart star Ariana Grande refused to make one of her 'Wicked' songs more 'hip-hop' because she didn't want to be seen as a pop singer playing a character.
Ariana Grande refused to make one of her 'Wicked' songs more 'hip-hop'.
The 31-year-old pop star plays Glinda in the new big screen adaptation of hit stage show 'Wicked' and belts out a number of big tunes including 'Popular' - and the musical's composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz has now revealed he wanted to change the track for the movie but Ariana refused.
He told the Los Angeles Times newspaper: "In the spirit of being open to new things for the movie, my music team and I thought, let’s refresh the rhythm. Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit.
"Ariana said: ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda'."
However, Schwartz did manage to convince the singer to change the song slightly to show off her vocal range. He explained: "I had this idea for a new vocal ending. Ariana was a little hesitant about it, but I told her that if I had thought of it for the original show, this is how it would have been.
"Once she was reassured that this new bit of music was coming out of character, she was on board."
It comes after it was revealed Ariana originally auditioned to play Elphaba in ‘Wicked’.
'Wicked' director Jon M. Chu let slip that Ariana initially tried out for Cynthia Erivo’s green witch character Elphaba, and sang all of the her songs during the audition process.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chu said: “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?’"
Ariana also recently confirmed she had auditioned for both parts, but she “secretly knew [she] was only meant for Glinda”.
Speaking on the ‘Sentimental Man’ podcast, Ariana said: “I had an inkling in my heart always that it was going to be Glinda, but I was hearing really mixed things from people who were like, ‘Oh, they maybe want you to read for both.’
"And I was like, ‘I guess that's because they don't know what my voice is, and maybe they think vocally I might be better-suited for Elphaba.’
"I secretly knew that I was only meant for Glinda."
'Wicked' is in cinemas now.
