Ariana Grande worked for months with an acting and vocal coach before auditioning for Wicked
Ariana Grande says she hired an acting and vocal coach months before auditioning for 'Wicked.
Ariana Grande worked with an acting and vocal coach months before her first audition for 'Wicked'.
The 31-year-old singer stars as Glinda The Good Witch in the two-part adaptation of the Broadway classic - the first film of which was an international blockbuster - and she has explained how she wanted "every tool in my box sharpened and ready" before she tried out for anything.
She told Australia's WHO magazine: "Well, I worked with my acting coach, Nancy Banks, who is absolutely brilliant. And that work we were doing started even long before my first audition because I just wanted to be prepared no matter what was going to be asked of me.
"I wanted to have every tool in my box sharpened and ready. And it just really was a lot of reading between the lines. Why is she so fascinated with Elphaba? What is the magic that she has that Glinda doesn't? And what's not on the page?"
Discussing how the classical, musical style of singing varied to her high-pitched pop vocals, she said: "I started working with my vocal coach, Eric Vetro, two and a half, three months before my first audition just because the vocal chords, like any other muscle in the body, they're habitual. You have to train them to do new things. I naturally have a high range, and I sing whistle tones and I sing high notes, but it's very different than singing coloratura soprano - a classical, operatic.
"I wanted to train my voice as much as I could so that by the time my first audition came around, it sounded authentic and warm and full and truly, like, what's required of Glinda. The many beautiful actresses that have played this role before me, you know, they're all classical soprano trained singers. I wanted to really earn that."
Ariana also shared the special "pact" she formed with her co-star Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba).
She said: "Well, we actually got to start building that trust and that relationship long before we even got to our first day on set because we were cast in 2021, and there was a lot of waiting before we got to London, before we got to start our fittings and our rehearsals and everything. And we talk a lot about this pact that we made to take care of each other and to be really honest with each other about anything that were to come up. But I don't think people really get how granular we got and how fully we mean that. I think we really showed up for each other in a really real way - it's impossible to really share the depths of how real that is."
