Photo: Universal Pictures/Youtube
Ariana Grande is coming back to the big screen, this time starring in Focker-in-Law alongside Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. This is very exciting, considering the fact that Grande is one of the funniest women in America. However, one question settled in before hitting play on the trailer: Which voice would Grande be using? Would she still have the high-pitched Glinda voice she spent three years using while filming and promoting the Wicked movies? The one that sounds kind of like if you gave Katharine Hepburn the tiniest hit of helium? Or would she break free of the curse that has plagued Austin Butler since Elvis and return to a speaking voice that doesn’t make her sound like a beautiful porcelain doll that’s mysteriously come alive?
Let’s all watch and find out.
She’s back, baby! Grande has seemingly ditched the Glinda timbre in favor of a voice that makes her sound like a real human woman instead of a sparkly pink wannabe witch. Grande’s voice sounds almost, dare I say, deep. Perhaps that’s because she’s playing, as she reveals in the trailer, someone who was once an “FBI hostage negotiator.” Bank robbers and kidnappers probably wouldn’t take a twinkly soprano speaking voice very seriously, which, as an actress, Grande seems to understand and has incorporated into her performance.
De Niro recently said that Grande is “probably the single most talented screen partner I’ve been lucky enough to share the screen with.” And you know what? I believe him. I’d like to see Leonardo DiCaprio try to go straight from Glinda to former FBI employee Olivia Jones.
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