grande verse / screen
on screen
the acting is not a sideline and never was — it is where she started. seventeen years from a broadway chorus to an academy award nomination, with a nickelodeon sitcom in the middle that took most of a decade to shake off.
13
stagea broadway musical at fourteen. the first professional credit, and a reminder that the singing came before the sitcom rather than after it.
Victorious
televisionthe role that made her famous and then took six years to escape. worth watching now mainly to see how completely the public persona was built out of it.
Sam & Cat
televisionthe spin-off, running at exactly the moment her debut album came out. she was doing both jobs simultaneously, which explains a lot about the pace of the early years.
Scream Queens
televisiona short, funny, deliberately silly part in ryan murphy's horror comedy — and the first role that traded on the nickelodeon image rather than being trapped by it.
Hairspray Live!
televisiona live network musical, performed once, no second takes. in hindsight it reads as an audition for the thing she eventually got.
Don't Look Up
filma pop star playing a pop star in a satire about a comet, which sounds like a joke that writes itself and mostly avoids being one.
Wicked
filmthe part the whole screen career was pointing at. a comic performance with real technical singing underneath it, and an academy award nomination for supporting actress.
Wicked: For Good
filmthe second half, where the character stops being funny. filmed back-to-back with the first, four years of work released across two years.
no stills or posters appear on this page. film and television imagery is studio-owned and not available under any licence this site can use — so the type does the work instead. the credits page explains the rule.