Ariana Grande is sharing how she managed the emotional weight of filming Wicked, revealing that she created specific “triggers” for her character Glinda to avoid tapping into her own personal struggles.
The 32-year-old star, who portrays Glinda in Wicked (2024) and its follow-up Wicked: For Good (2025), opened up about her acting process during a new Variety Actors on Actors discussion with Adam Sandler, 59.
“I'm a crier in life, but it's not as easy when you're performing. It's not a party trick,” she explained.
She continued, “I invented triggers for Glinda so that I didn't have to touch on my own, because certain themes in this film are so adjacent to my life. I had to design her pain so I didn't need to reference my own.”
Grande also mentioned that the gown she wore in the sequel left her with a few “little scratches,” but she brushed it off with humor, adding, “Anything for the craft. I'm fond of coming home with an unexplained bruise or scratch.”
The topic came up when Sandler asked, “You wore a stunning dress in the movie. Do I call it a gown?”
“We called it ‘Bubble Two,’ the lavender gown I'm always wearing in the second film,” Grande said.
Sandler then wondered how she managed to eat lunch while wearing such a dramatic costume. She answered, “I perch on a little apple box. It goes under the hoop skirt. Bubble Two had a lot of give and flexibility, but I got some little scratches.”
The pair also joked about leaving past projects with bruises courtesy of actor Ben Stiller, whom they’ve both collaborated with.
Sandler recalled, “I've come home massive bruises. Massive. When I did my first movie with Noah [Baumbach], ‘The Meyerowitz Stories’ with our mutual friend Ben Stiller, we got into a fight in the movie. I had an entire bicep of a bruise that lasted maybe two weeks. Ben took it very seriously, I think he wanted to kick my a**. I'd see crazy eyes on him.”
He added humorously, “I want you to know, Ariana, that if Stiller was to bring that energy in real life, I would choke him out immediately. But my character and my professionalism allowed him to whoop me.”