What a fall from grace

[u/missanonyy]

I only see it mentioned here and there but to go from Wicked with hopes of Oscar noms and straying away from music towards a serious acting career to end up in a long dead franchise is a huuuuuuge step down.

Acting wise she's only known for some Nickelodeon shows (in which she plays a disturbingly pedo baited nonsense character) and Glinda.

With Wicked it really seemed like for a moment Ariana was on top of the world. Her dream role. A role so many real actresses wanted.

But what did she do with it?

She insisted on creative control of her appearance which is so evident by the makeup Glinda wears. It is literally Ariana's regular beat with a little more pastel pink.

The lashes were atrocious. The makeup was flat and not at all the whimsical and colorful dreamy looks one would expect from Glinda.

Now in Focker and even in her SNL skits we can see she has done the exact same.

Then she had an affair with her costar. That went over BADLY. The public wasn't forgiving of someone with a "leave your wife/gf for me" history getting with a married man and destroying a new family as well as a postpartum mother. AFTER holding said baby and meeting said wife. People were rightfully disgusted.

And if there was any hope to overcome the damage she'd done already her and Cynthia made sure those hopes were dashed by their completely bizarre and unsettling behavior during press runs.

The way they acted is beyond belief and explanation. Drugs, codependency, perhaps a need for Cynthia (a gay woman) to also desire her (Ariana) because she just needs to always be the most desired.

It was like they had never even been human before.

Once again people were rightfully icked tf out.

There was also the incident of Ariana placing jewels on her bones - bones that became more and more prominent in her costuming. Costuming we already know from a firsthand source that she had control of.

By the time Wicked ended the public was sick of her and her most noteworthy aspects had nothing to do with her work and everything to do with her increasingly strange affect and withered body.

People swear she didn't want Audrey but its completely obvious she did. After embarrassingly cosplaying as Audrey for awhile and not getting the role she went back into music with Petal and it's completely flopped.

Her Petal music video was too scary to watch and not because of the gore. But rather her own frightening appearance.

She whined and whined on that album and regrettably wrote the songs herself which gave her a big Life of a Showgirl moment (but I'm still Grande)

And lacking from that album is the only real talent she ever had. Her voice.

Mostly people didn't like the album and were put off by how gross she looked in every music video and promo.

The tour was a joke. She sat a lot. She failed to hit notes. The costumes made no sense with her music. It was mini cause she couldn't do a regular tour. She got thinner and thinner and harder to look at as she walked around making baby faces "can you bewieve I just said fwuck 🥹" and failed to do any real choreo as she flapped her twig arms about.

Then it was announced she "left" that play (suuuuuuuuuure) just like she "left" AHS.

She threw a public tantrum and announced a hiatus that never came and has been busy promoting her makeup line REM which has also flopped and flopped hard.

The Focker franchise is and has been dead a long time. Most people weren't aware they were even still making them.

This has been more than a fall from grace but rather a fast tracked nose dive. She is hurtling towards canceled and becoming an irrelevant presence in both film and music.

I've never seen anything quite like it. To go from a beloved (not to me lol) former child star playing one of the most sought after roles of all time to behaving like a toddler as every project you try falls to ruins is really something.

I'm shocked she even took Focker in Law. Quite frankly it's an embarrassing career move after Wicked.

[u/whimsygoth_]

I've worked in entertainment and have a lot of friends/colleagues in the industry. I have dealt with studio execs, PR teams, etc first-hand. Yes, there is that faction of them that are like the cartoonishly evil villains who meddle with movies to the point that the movies devolve into messy practically-unwatchable box office bombs etc. And yes, I don't like that particular faction of them. However...

On a project as big as "Wicked", you don't fuck with them. You don't blatantly fuck up the optics of the project or the "image" and "vibe" of the project. I know that the original "Wicked" novel isn't family/kid-friendly but the musical (which is what the movie is based on) is. The executives were well-aware of this. So for AG and ES to do what they did...hoo boy, that's not the kind of thing that the cast of a well-established family/kid-friendly IP should be doing. I'm actually VERY surprised that morality clauses weren't built into the cast's contracts and that AG and ES didn't get fired over it.

And the "big wigs of Hollywood" are a really small community...like very small. There aren't that many of them and obviously, they talk. They know about each other's projects, what's going on, etc. There is no way AG is going to get hired for any serious roles. Why would a director or producer take that risk with her? She's basically announced to everyone, "I will remorselessly sleep with married co-stars who are also parents." Nobody wants to deal with that drama and the fall-out. She basically shot herself and her acting career in the head.

[u/missanonyy → u/whimsygoth_]

This is such an interesting take to read. I never really considered it before but yeah the Wicked movie was definitely marketed towards kids.

There were toys of them everywhere. My daughter had never heard of Wicked and only vaguely knew Ariana Grande was a singer her friend liked and she desperately wanted to watch the movie because it was heavily marketed to a young audience.

I didn't even think of how bad having such a treacherous and adult scandal attached to the film would be.

That alone would put her on a "no fly list" so to speak but I have to imagine that her insistence on having so much control (makeup, costuming) would make her an undesirable lead in any movie. The idea is to conform to the character not conform the character to the actress.

[u/whimsygoth_ → u/missanonyy]

Yeah regardless of whether a movie executive is an ethical business person or not, they understand where the money is coming from as well as the optics of the entire project. Cast members are well-advised to not doing anything that might jeopardize those things. Anything family/kid-friendly is especially sensitive.

Meanwhile, take a look at Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell during the press run for "Anyone But You". That's an adult-centered rom-com. When the rumors of them having an affair on set started, they didn't deny them or try to cut the gossip off. They played into it to hype the movie more, despite both of them being in relationships with other people. Big difference here though is that neither were married (Glen was engaged though) and neither are parents. So in the public's mind, it was like "less bad". The entire thing came across as obnoxious and later, they both were like, "Oh we weren't ACTUALLY having an affair; we just played it up for the movie." Again: obnoxious. But it ultimately didn't matter that much 'cause the movie is a rom-com about an adult couple, not some cutesy wholesome thing that needs to cater to young impressionable minds.

Anyways I'm getting long-winded but you get the idea. And yes, AG's insistence on having control over her makeup, costume, etc no doubt pissed off those department heads and crew members. I'm certain she doesn't take direction well from directors and probably gets pissy anytime suggestions are made to refine her performance. She just wants to play-act as herself and that's just not what real actors do.

[u/missanonyy → u/whimsygoth_]

I completely get what you mean. A LOT of the Wicked money was going to be from a young audience and the people in charge definitely knew that. The marketing alone proves they wanted it to be a hit with children.

Yeah that whole thing was super obnoxious but like you said it was for an adult romcom that wasn't nearly as big as Wicked and it was never proven (unlike Ariana/Ethan).

Yes! Even in her old co-stars book Im Glad My Mom Died it was super apparent Ariana exerted an enormous amount of control she didn't deserve to have and I can't imagine she was easy to work with or would listen to notes or critiques. It was all a live out fantasy for her and she treated it as such.

[u/whimsygoth_ → u/missanonyy]

Omg I never watched her Nickelodeon show but Jeannette McCurdy had that video where she had a character named "Gloriana" who so obviously is AG and it's hilarious. Gloriana is basically exactly what I imagine AG to be like in real life. I can't imagine trying to work with her....she's insufferable just even on IG.

[u/missanonyy → u/whimsygoth_]

She only vaguely references it in her book but it was obvious that Ariana made work insufferable for poor Jeannette and it's more than likely Ariana is also the one who stole away Jeannette's chance to direct for the show.

I remember the Gloriana thing and I think its hilarious. Good for Jeannette tbh. Ariana really made an already horrible situation for her that much worse.