Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda the Good Witch alongside Cynthia Erivo in *Wicked*, shared her father Edward Butera’s emotional reaction to seeing her full name in the movie credits.
Ariana, who decided to be credited as Ariana Grande-Butera for the film, revealed that her dad was deeply moved by the gesture. “Oh man, he cried,” Ariana told *Entertainment Tonight* in an interview published on November 12. “Whoa. Yeah, he cried. I surprised him.”
The singer, who stars in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical alongside Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, and Ethan Slater, made sure to capture the heartfelt moment on camera. “I pulled it up on my laptop and secretly recorded him,” she said. “I told him I wanted to show him the typography of the credits because he’s a graphic designer, and he loves that stuff. It was a big surprise and he cried. It was very emotional.”
Ariana was able to pull off the surprise thanks to some help from the film’s “generous” director, Jon M. Chu. “Before he was supposed to send me—sorry Universal, the cat’s out of the bag—he sent me the credits,” Ariana explained. “He knew people would start seeing them soon and was worried someone would mention it before my dad saw it, so we surprised him.”
Ariana also shared why she chose to use both her father’s and mother Joan Grande’s last names in the credits, rather than the stage name she’s used throughout her career. “That was my name when I first saw *Wicked*,” she said. “I do feel like this role and this project helped me sort of come home to little Ari. Maybe little pieces of her got lost along the way in this crazy industry, and I’m so grateful for how this experience has led me back.”
She added, “I kind of just wanted to capture that. It doesn’t feel small to me either.”
