Inside Wicked: For Good – How Ariana Grande Built Glinda From The Inside Out

Ariana Grande did not simply reprise an iconic role. For Wicked and Wicked: For Good, she built a Glinda whose glitter is inseparable from her fractures, her privilege, and her private grief. Guided by exhaustive prep and in sync with the filmmakers’ vision of a Glinda under impossible pressure, she approached the character from the inside out so that every choice in the final chapter feels earned, not performed.

Knowing Glinda Before The Cameras Rolled

During the Critics Choice Association Wicked: For Good press conference, Ariana Grande shared tremendous insight on her role and the films. Before stepping on set, Ariana’s priority was not the costume, but the person inside it.

“I just wanted to kind of make sure that I knew who she was as well as possible before we even got there. So even things about her that you never got to see on screen, if they weren’t referenced in a scene, if they weren’t, you know, talked about or performed.

I just wanted to kind of make sure that even in the first film, beneath the bubbly, shiny, perfect exterior, her, you know, bubble of privilege, I like to call it, there’s a person underneath that has, a lot of insecurities, a lot of little wounds that, you know, contribute to her need for all of that, external validation.”

Glinda’s “goodness” becomes something to interrogate, not assume. Ariana treats the pink perfection as armor, built over years of expectation, performance, and a desperate need to feel chosen. That aligns with how Wicked: For Good positions Glinda as a carefully crafted symbol who must finally confront the cost of being Oz’s comfortingly simple idea of “good.”

Mapping Galinda’s Wounds And Triggers in Wicked and Wicked: For Good

Ariana did not leave Glinda’s inner life abstract. She engineered it.

“I think what I kept in mind, I just wanted to make sure that she had her own set of human triggers, you know, separate from my own, made sure they were available for me, major. They had been thought about. Thought a lot about her childhood, where those beliefs came from. They were projected onto her.”

“Her childhood was something that I referenced a lot, and, I wondered if her parents ever drove her to school or if someone else did that for her. Like you know, feeling important in the way that she’s always ached to feel important versus what she was actually given, where those traumas started and, mapping out her insecurities.

And I used a color coding system. I had sticky tabs, and I would kind of have a tab for each little, like, insecurity or, like, emotional thing that was peeking through, when she feels safe was a different color than when she feels like not chosen. It was a different color.”

“I just kind of wanted to map it all out so that in my brain, I knew where everything was coming from before we got to set. And then by the time we got there, thankfully that work was just in my system and I could throw it away like the tabs were gone.”

“It was gone, but it was kind of in my body and in my system, so that when I needed those triggers available to me, they were just there. And I’m thankful because I think even underneath the comedy, they were still existing. And that is how comedy works, is when it’s coming from a truthful place. So that was my way of navigating.”

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What plays as sharp comedy or polished public persona on screen is grounded in a private blueprint of abandonment, validation, and control. Every laugh sits on top of something sharp.

Preparation As Power

Her process is extreme by design. The aim is to make truth available on demand.

“Extensive vocal training every single day for three months before even my first audition, so that I wouldn’t have to think about how the notes were going to come out in the room. And I could just honor the honesty of what’s happening in the scene. Yeah. Just making sure that your instrument and your mind and body are all kind of ready and available to you, so that you can navigate it all, I guess.”

“Preparation and human triggers, giving her her own set of triggers so that, again, even if they’re not referenced, they’re just there. Yeah. So that she can have her own monsters.”

Technical security frees her to let Glinda crack in real time. When Wicked: For Good demands that Glinda confront complicity, loneliness, and the loss at the core of her power, Ariana is not reaching for an idea of emotion. She already loaded the chamber.

Becoming One With Glinda

All that invisible work builds to a kind of fusion.

“This emotional climax of the movie, on a day on a random day and I love, I remember, I loved that so much because for me, it’s all about the preparation. And if you know the person from the inside out before you get there, you can kind of throw everything away and forget about it and then respond honestly in the moment.”

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“It was just lots of preparation and spending a lot of time with her and getting to a place where I didn’t even know where I ended. And she began. It was like we were just one for a while.”

That is the Glinda audiences meet in Wicked: For Good: still dazzling, still iconic, but haunted by mapped insecurities, childhood stories, and moral fractures that Ariana has already lived in for years. When she finally chooses who she wants to be, it does not feel like branding. It feels like confession.

Wicked: For Good is scheduled to be released in theaters on November 21, 2025, with showings in standard formats as well as premium formats including RealD 3D, IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, ScreenX, and D-Box. Definitely go for the biggest and loudest format you can.

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About Wicked: For Good

Last year’s global cinematic cultural sensation, which became the most successful Broadway film adaptation of all time, now reaches its epic, electrifying, emotional conclusion in Wicked: For Good

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How does knowing Ariana built Glinda from the inside out change the way you see her “goodness” in Wicked: For Good? What invisible insecurities or “monsters” do you now spot beneath the bubble? When that final chapter plays out on screen, whose story will you believe you are really watching, the legend or the girl who became it? Share your thoughts in the comments or @me.

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