Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Colman Domingo and more W Performance Issues Spreads

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Q: Did you feel any hesitation about your own Spanish?

A: I was extremely proud to speak Spanish. I was nervous, but I have released a whole album in Spanish before. I’m more comfortable singing in Spanish, so doing an entire film was a little intimidating.

 

 

Q: Did you always want to be an actor?

A: I did it in the beginning because it was my mother’s dream. She pursued acting, but by the time my mom was 25, she was divorced with two kids and she decided to focus her life solely on motherhood. She didn't make me feel like it was a sacrifice—she loved being a stay-at-home mom. But she really wanted me to be an actress. I don’t remember making the choice. I remember it made my mom happy. My mom was my manager, and we were a team. I always wanted to buy her a house, and I started to pay the bills. When my mom passed, it was harder for me to be an actress because I realized how much of it was for her.
 

 

Q: So how did Wicked the movie come into your life?

A: I heard little murmurs of, "Oh, they might start auditioning people for the movie sometime soon." That was actually three or four years before my first audition. I remember asking my team to check in every now and then and say, "Hey, is this happening? Because if it is, she will pull the plug on just about anything and begin training and vocal lessons." Train my voice to sing the operatic bits, and get into acting lessons to make sure that all my tools are available to me when I need them to transition back over into being an actress, so that I could earn it. Because what was most important to me was that I earned it. I wanted to do the work.

Q: How did you feel when they told you that you got the part?

A: I have never in my life felt the way I did when I found out that I got the role of Glinda in the film. I thought, Everything’s going to be okay forever now.

Q: Did you scream?

A: I sobbed. And then we got to do the work!
 

 

Q: You’ve been working steadily for decades, but in recent years you’ve had a string of critical successes with The Color Purple and Rustin, and you won an Emmy for Euphoria. How do you feel about finding success at this age?

A: I think it's an awesome thing that I got success later in my career than earlier. I can handle it now. I'm 55 years old. I had been a slow burn for 30-something years. I've been simmering in the pot. I really was just a theater artist, making my work, and every so often people knew me. But it wasn't in an overwhelming way. It's been gradual, and I still know how to not take myself too seriously. That's very important—I feel like the moment you believe the hype, that's the problem.
 

 

Q: What’s your pet peeve?

A: Lateness. Especially for specific things like theater. I will kill a bitch. I will cut somebody. You don't do that unless there's an emergency. I struggle with disrespect for other people’s time.
 

 

Q: Do you have a favorite reality show?

A: I'm a die-hard Jersey Shore girl. Snooki, DJ Pauly D. It’s my favorite. I’ll go back and watch the OG seasons. But Jersey Shore was such a formative time. I think it came out the summer of my sophomore year of high school. It’s the best.
 

 

Q: The costuming in the film is so important to conveying the time period.

A: The brilliant J.W. Anderson, who did the costumes, made a decision with Luca very early on that we weren't going to try and re-create the suits, because however well you made them, they wouldn't look like they were lived in. So we used original Brooks Brothers suits from the period, which had real history in them.

Q: And then there’s the underwear.

A: Let’s talk about the underwear. I mean, what were we going to do? A kind of thong? That would be a bit of an anachronism, wouldn’t it?

Q: There were buttons.

A: Jonathan wasn’t sure I was going to wear the underwear. It was my idea to get garters for the socks. And, actually, there are some really beautiful photographs of Burroughs and his lover lying in bed in that underwear, wearing suspenders on his socks. So I kind of wanted to re-create that image.

https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-performances-2025-portfolio-photos

 

each comes with their own interview on link above