10 Recent Movie Castings That Had No Right To Be This Good

When casting characters that have been known and loved for as long as the likes of Glinda and Elphaba, particularly after they have been played with unanimous and universal acclaim for so many years by Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, there were always going to be scrutinising eyes on Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

Of course, both of them utterly soared in the roles, but this may not have been expected so much from the former, who was truly taking the biggest step of her acting career to date.

No one was ever going to doubt that Ariana Grande could pull off the singing side of playing Glinda, but the character is so complex and multi-layered that a more seasoned actor could have been considered, particularly with the list of others who auditioned for the role.

Grande's acting resume was still relatively short at the time, with the major highlights outside of her childhood fame on Nickelodeon being Don't Look Up and Scream Queens. Nothing against those projects, but to go from that to playing one of the biggest characters in one of the biggest movies of the year, nailing every single aspect from the comically self-obsessed, pretty mean girl to the emotional and supportive best friend, and earning an Oscar nomination for it, is insane.