Why Ariana Grande Is Credited Under a Different Name for ‘Wicked’

In the upcoming movie-musical Wicked, Ariana Grande switched things up and decided to be credited as Ariana Grande-Butera.

Fans immediately noticed the change, and in a recent interview during the press tour for the film, Grande revealed why she chose to use her full name.

"One thing that the fans were very excited to see was you credited as your full, grown-up name," the interviewer told the pop star in a video clip reposted by a fan on social media.

"Oh!" she smiled.

The interviewer then asked her what the "symbolism and importance" of the choice was.

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"Technically, it's my little girl name! Technically it's [little Ari's] name," she began.

"I just feel like this experience was such a homecoming for me. I feel like I came home to myself in a lot of ways through what I've learned from Glinda, from Elphaba," she explained.

"That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old and it felt like a really lovely way of honoring that," she said.

"It felt really full circle," she added.

The star's journey to playing Glinda in Wicked began with her love for the Broadway show after seeing it as a child, but she almost didn't get the role.

According to director Jon M. Chu, he originally wanted to go with "no-namers" for the main roles of Elphaba and Glinda.

"I wanted to have a very clear slate coming into Wicked. It's a big enough property on its own, so we can discover two people. I was like, 'We're gonna find no-namers,'" he told SFX Magazine.

"But then we got calls from all these great actresses who wanted to audition and we saw everybody, and they were all really great. Anyone could have done this role, except there were two people who were meant to do this role, for this particular movie at this particular time," he said, referring to Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

Chu said that because the music in the film is so "emotionally important...that the person who's doing it has to get into song and out of song so easily that it's like butter, like you don't even notice it."

Because of this, he wanted actors and singers with "chops."

Wicked Part One arrives in theaters on Nov. 22.