Every Ariana Grande Acting Role, Ranked

How’s this for a throwback? For Ariana Grande’s first proper television billing we have to go all the way back to 2009. That’s right, four whole years before she made her Billboard Hot 100 debut with “The Way” (with Mac Miller).

In the “Bad Bad News” episode (season two, episode two) of Connor Gallagher’s The Battery’s Down — a 2008 musical comedy series — Grande is billed as “Bat Mitzvah Riffer.” Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t really do much outside of belting out some ridiculous high notes in an appearance that lasts just half a minute, but at least she sounded great while doing so!

Given that this is just a cameo, Grande’s appearance on Family Guy just barely makes this list. Nonetheless, her nod to her Italian heritage makes it memorable enough. In “Mom’s the Word,” episode 12 of season 12 of Family Guy, Grande voices one of the Italian next-door neighbors that Stewie and Brian eavesdrop on.

In a way, this Family Guy cameo foreshadowed Grande’s eventual collaboration with a fellow Italian-American pop icon. Remember when she and Lady Gaga topped the Billboard Hot 100 with their Grammy-winning dance-pop anthem “Rain on Me” (2020)?

In 2016, the same year Grande unleashed her Grammy-nominated Dangerous Woman LP, Ben Stiller finally unveiled the long-awaited sequel to 2001’s Zoolander. Appearing alongside Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Penélope Cruz and Kristen Wiig, Grande made a cameo as SM Girl. She seduces Owen Wilson’s character while donning a black latex ensemble similar to the bunny ear-leotard combo she frequently wore during the Dangerous Woman era. Again, not really a showcase of her skills, but this cameo does speak to how strong Grande’s brand had grown by 2016.

Have you ever wondered if Ariana Grande and Jennette McCurdy ever teamed up to act outside of their hit Nickelodeon series, the answer is yes! Both Sam & Cat leads appeared in the 2013 American English dub of 2011’s Snowflake, the White Gorilla.

Grande voices the titular character in the film, which explores Snowflake’s — the only white gorilla in the world — attempt to escape the zoo and find a witch to help her become a “normal” gorilla. While the film is nothing more than a blip in the larger cultural consciousness, it provided Grande a chance to show off both hr voice-acting bona fides and her ability to lead a feature film.

Here’s a little-known fact about Ariana Grande’s early career: she appeared in not one, but two English-language dubs of animated features. In 2016, an English-language dub of Underdogs finally arrived on Netflix and DVD following a scrapped theatrical release.

Underdogs follows a young boy named Amadeo on his journey to defend his crown as the town’s reigning table football king and finally score the girl of his dreams, Laura, voiced by Grande. Other notable Underdogs cast members include Shawn Mendes, Matthew Morrison, Katie Holmes, Bella Thorne, Nicholas Hoult, Brooklyn Beckham, Mel Brooks and Jay Pharaoh. Panned by critics and quietly offloaded onto streaming, Underdogs was far from a success. At the very least, Grande showed some improvement from her last voice-acting gig.

When it came time to revive Winx Club Stateside, Nickelodeon knew to tap Victorious co-stars and BFFs Liz Gillies and Ariana Grande.

The “Positions” singer voiced Princess Diaspro for twelve episodes between 2013 and 2014. A certified mean girl, Princess Diaspro is one of Winx Club’s most conniving characters — especially when it comes to getting in the way of her ex-fiancé and his new girlfriend. Due to scheduling conflicts, Grande could not return for the show’s sixth season, so she was recast with Cassandra Lee Morris.

If you don’t already know by now, Ariana Grande adores Jim Carrey. She referenced The Truman Show (1998) in her photoshoot for her Billboard 200-topping Sweetener LP, she’s called him a “lifelong crush” and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the dominant influence for her forthcoming Eternal Sunshine album.

Thus, it was no surprise that the two stars finally found their way to each other in a professional capacity. In 2018, Carrey debuted Kidding, a Showtime dramedy that followed Mr. Pickles, a children’s television presenter, who must balance his multimillion-dollar pickle empire with onslaught of family drama and personal tragedy. The series, which starred Frank Langella, Judy Greer and Catherine Keener, among others, picked up a pair of 2019 Golden Globe nominations, both of which it lost.

Grande guest starred in the fifth episode of Kidding’s second season as Piccola Grande, the Pickle Fairy of Hope. Unsurprisingly, her cameo was her singing a song, but she did it while sitting on a tree branch and donning a pickle fairy costume, and that’s what matters!

Did you know that there’s a pantomime version of Snow White that includes songs from the likes of Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and Hall & Oates? Well, one exists, and back in 2012, Grande played the titular princess in the 2012 Pasadena Playhouse revival of the Kris Lythgoe-penned show. The production ran from Dec. 12-30, 2012.

Low-quality recordings of the show are still available on YouTube, and even though the footage is a bit crunchy, the “Break Free” singer sounds gorgeous. Grande is a natural in the musical theatre realm, so any role in that arena is a slam dunk for her.

The unsung heroes of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel are their original movies. Gloriously campy and often accompanied by a new banger or two, those films allowed young fans to see their favorite stars outside of their trademark television series.

Swindle, a 2013 film based on Gordon Korman’s 2008 children’s novel of the same name, follows a friend group as they try to rectify getting swindled out of an incredibly valuable Honus Wagner baseball card. The film was squarely a Nickelodeon affair, with sneak peeks airing during three separate Sam & Cat episodes as well as the series finale of Big Time Rush. As far as these types of movies go, Grande delivered a fine performance alongside co-stars Jennette McCurdy, Noah Crawford and Chris O’Neal. If anything, it was nice to see Grande grapple with Nick material outside of the Cat Valentine character.

Back to where it all began! The 2008 Broadway production of 13 marked the professional debuts of both Grande and Elizabeth Gillies. Across 105 performances and 22 previews, Grande rocked the Great White Ray as Charlotte, one of the key female characters in the Jason Robert Brown-penned musical. The production earned Brown a Drama Desk Award nod for outstanding lyrics.

Like her other stage performances, only low-quality recordings of 13 are available online. Regardless, those clips find a fierce, young Ariana Grande absolutely killing her choreography and blocking as if she were a seasoned Broadway star. Over 15 years removed from the original 13 run, the musical still stands as a guiding light in Grande’s career. After all, she’s (kind of) returning to those roots with the upcoming Wicked movies and she and Brown have collaborated twice — 2016’s “Jason’s Song” and 2020’s “Still Hurting” — since first meeting each other through 13.

Standing as the most mature film in her still-growing filmography, Grande took it to the Oscars with Don’t Look Up. An apocalyptic black comedy infused with political satire, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up follows two astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) attempting to warn the world about an impending comet set to destroy human civilization and permanently alter the planet.

Grande stars as Riley Bina, an international pop star who is eventually able to pick herself up from her trivial romance woes to write and record an original song to help the astronomer get their message to the masses. This is easily the most recent we’ve seen Grande onscreen, and the nuance she brings to the character — as well as the way she infuses Riley’s persona with glints of her own experience as an internationally renowned pop star — demonstrates remarkable growth from her younger roles.

In 2022, Don’t Look Up broke the Netflix weekly viewing record with 152.29 million hours viewed in its second week of release. The film also picked up four Academy Award nominations, including best picture, while Grande’s original song — the Kid Cudi-assisted “Just Look Up” — won the 2022 Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for outstanding original song for a comedy or musical visual media production.

The woman, the myth, the legend — Cat Valentine. The role that cemented Grande as a new-age Nickelodeon and gave her the catalyst for her record-breaking pop career, Cat Valentine carried the “Yes, And?” singer through three series: Victorious, iCarly (guest stints count!) and Sam & Cat.

In essence, Cat is a trademark ditz – with a fear of clouds! — who’s bubbly and sweet. People often mistake her as a complete idiot (she’s not) because of her airy tone of voice, and despite her tendency to find herself in unsavory situations, she always shows up for her friends. There’s also Cat’s distinctive red hair — a ‘do that used to be synonymous with Grande before the ponytail came around, if you can believe it!

Comedic acting is often underrated, and what Grande did with Cat Valentine was something pretty special. From her random interjections to her more serious moments of disappointment and frustration, Grande brought a lot of verve and nuance to a character that could have been remarkably flat in lesser hands.

How could a role that included such an iconic death scene not top the list? Boasting a star-studded cast comprised of Grande, Emma Roberts, Neicy Nash-Betts, Jamie Lee Curtis, Keke Palmer, Lea Michele, Glen Powell and Billie Lourd, Scream Queens is on the Mount Rushmore of early Gen Z TV cult classics. The slasher-themed horror-comedy took the ethos of fellow Ryan Murphy anthology series American Horror Story and injected it with camp of the highest degree.

Playing Sonya Herfmann, Grande slayed her role as one of the Chanels — think of them as descendants of the Heathers or the Plastics — that dominate Kappa Kappa Tau sorority at Wallace University. Her breathy intonation for the characters evokes her classic Cat Valentine performance, but there’s a level of straight-up cattiness that she brings to her Scream Queens role that perfectly complements the show’s comedic tone. The Red Devil may have gotten her in the end — the end of the first episode, that is — but Grande’s winning performance trumps all.