If there’s one thing I know about Amanda Seyfried, it’s that she has always wanted to play G(a)linda in the film version(s) of Wicked. She loves to talk about it! She talked about it in 2013. She talked about it in 2015. She talked about it in 2021. She’s still talking about it now, and they’ve already cast Ariana Grande as Glinda! (Sorry, I can’t keep doing the (a) thing when I spell it, it’s too goofy.) In response to a question from Backstage about the wildest thing she has done to get a role, Seyfried revealed that she went as far as to audition in person for Wicked on her weekends while she was filming The Dropout during the week. “‘You know what? Yeah, I have to play the last scene of The Dropout on Tuesday. I’ll give my Sunday to you,’” Seyfried said. “I literally bent over backwards while playing the hardest role of my life.” Imagine the vocal strain incurred by going back and forth from Elizabeth Holmes’s basso profundo drawl to Glinda’s soprano. Imagine Elizabeth Holmes singing “Popular.” Imagine Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes doing a shoulder shimmy while singing “Popular.”
Anyway, we will not be seeing Amanda Seyfried as Glinda in Wicked, because they did not cast her and also there’s only a 16.3 percent chance that movie ever actually gets made. But Seyfried has framed this all as a learning experience. She’s still working with her vocal coach (in the past she’s said she works with Liz Caplan, coach to the stars) — “because ever since Les Miz, I was like, I need to be better. I need to do better” — and she promises that “whatever comes in next in terms of musicals, I’m finally prepared.” This is good news because we do think that in a few decades she could potentially pull off an incredible performance in a film version of the musical Grey Gardens.
