Ariana Grande: 7 Forgotten Screen Cameos
Ariana Grande went global with her vocal chops, but before she was belting out hits like "Break Free" and "Bang Bang," she was flexing her skills as both a Broadway and Nickelodeon star. She had her first taste of fame in the musical 13 followed soon after by a scene-stealing role on Victorious as the quirky Cat Valentine, and finally leading to the spin-off Sam & Cat. In between those roles — and even as she launched her singing career — Grande worked heavily as a voice actress or spared time for a brief cameo in various movies and TV shows. Let's take a look back at some of Grande's lost on-screen moments.
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‘The Battery’s Down’ (2009)
Before she made it to Nickelodeon, Grande was a Broadway baby who starred in the show 13. A couple years after the show debuted, she joined other theatre stars for the web series The Battery's Down. Her appearance was brief and included the future superstar riffing at a bat mitzvah during the song "All About Me," which also featured 13 and Victorious co-star Elizabeth Gillies.
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‘Snowflake the White Gorilla’ (2011)
As witnessed during her hosting debut on SNL, Grande is a malleable vocal talent. Unsurprisingly, she's used that to her benefit with a variety of voice acting gigs that she acquired during her time on Victorious. Snowflake the White Gorilla was one of her first big gets and had her embodying the title role in the English version of the originally Spanish-language film. Her soon-to-be Sam & Cat co-star Jennette McCurdy also lent her voice to the film that explores the fictional childhood of a real-life albino gorilla that lived in the Barcelona zoo until its death in 2003.
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‘Winx Club’ (2011)
Coinciding with her debut on Victorious, Grande also began voicing the character Princess Diaspro in 2011 on the Nickelodeon adaptation of Italian cartoon Winx Club. The show features fairy princesses and witches as well as the vocal talent of Keke Palmer, Ariel Winter and more.
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‘Swindle’ (2014)
Grande starred as Amanda "The Gymnast" Benson in the Nickelodeon adaptation of Gordon Korman's novel Swindle. She's part of a group of friends who help main character Griffin retrieve a friend's baseball card from a collectibles dealer who is planning to flip it. The film also starred fellow Nickelodeon actors Jennette McCurdy of Sam & Cat as well as Noah Crawford of How to Rock.
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‘Family Guy’ (2014)
Image Credit: Fox Broadcasting/Photofest Grande's guest spot on Family Guy did not have the singer and actress playing herself. Even though she was in the midst of one of her biggest years yet, Grande had only a brief vocal cameo as "Italian Girl" in an episode of the animated series. In the same episode, Lauren Bacall, in her final acting role, plays a friend of Peter Griffin's mother who passed away in the episode.
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‘Underdogs’ (Unreleased)
For the U.S. dub of the Argentinian children's movie Underdogs, Grande joined Disney's Bella Thorne in voicing the female lead, with Grande serving as Adult Laura and Thorne as Young Laura. Her co-stars included Nicholas Hoult, Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan and was one of two adaptations of the originally Spanish language film (a U.K. version starred Rupert Grint as the male lead). Though the U.S. version was slated for a 2014 release, it was pushed back to 2015 before being completely taken off a release schedule.
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‘Zoolander 2’ (2016)
Grande is one of too many celeb cameos in the Zoolander sequel. It's easy to blink and miss the star's brief appearance during Hansel's orgy, especially since she's masked in a latex BDSM jumpsuit. The outfit may have had some influence on her Dangerous Woman look, where she's been seen sporting latex bunny ears.