Ariana Grande on the Brink of Breaking 51-Year-Old Oscars Record with Best Supporting Actress Win

Ariana Grande-Butera, widely recognized as a pop icon, could achieve a historic milestone with a potential Oscar win for her role in Wicked. Though her music career under the name “Ariana Grande”has garnered immense popularity, her acting roots trace back to Nickelodeon hits like Victorious and Sam & Kat. In 2024, she marks her significant return to the big screen with Wicked, following a brief appearance in Netflix’s Don’t Look Up. In this highly anticipated film adaptation of the Broadway musical, she portrays Glinda, a character that evolves from being perceived as frivolous to someone who shares a profound bond with Elphaba, played by Cynthia Erivo, the future Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

Grande-Butera is a strong contender for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at the 2025 Academy Awards. Her performance has already received nominations from numerous prestigious award circuits, including the BAFTA Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Though she didn’t secure the Golden Globe, where Zoe Saldaña won for her performance in Emilia Pérez, the pathway to an Oscar remains promising for Grande-Butera, which could culminate in breaking a record that has stood for over 50 years.

Ariana Grande’s Historic Screentime

Extensive Presence in the Film

While Grande-Butera’s role in Wicked is classified as supporting, her character Glinda appears for a significant portion of the film’s two-hour and forty-minute runtime. According to calculations shared by Matthew Stewart on X, she features in the movie for an impressive 1 hour, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds, which accounts for 44.59% of the total duration. This positions her among the contenders for the longest screentime for a Best Supporting Actress nominee in Oscar history.

Screentime Breakdown of Main Wicked Cast
Character (Actor)	Run Time (Percentage)
Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo)	1:25:44 (53.53%)
Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera)	1:11:25 (44.59%)
Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey)	18:29 (11.54%)
Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh)	16:52 (10.53%)
Boq (Ethan Slater)	13:53 (8.67%)
Nessarose (Marissa Bode)	11:47 (7.36%)
The Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum)	11:25 (7.13%)
Shenshen (Bronwyn James)	11:13 (7.00%)
Pfannee (Bowen Yang)	11:12 (6.99%)
Miss Coddle (Keala Settle)	4:42 (2.93%)
Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage)	3:51 (2.40%)

If nominated, Grande-Butera would secure the second-longest screentime ever for a Best Supporting Actress contender at the Academy Awards, trailing behind Jennifer Jones’ performance in the 1944 film Since You Went Away, where she appeared for approximately 1 hour, 15 minutes, and 38 seconds. Although Zoe Saldaña also has a substantial presence in her film, her screentime of 57 minutes and 50 seconds falls short of this record.

Potential Record-Breaking Achievement

Historic Records in Sight

Should Ariana Grande-Butera win the Oscar for her role in Wicked, she will not only claim the title of Best Supporting Actress but also set a new record for the longest screentime ever recorded for a winner in this category. Currently, Tatum O’Neal holds this distinction with a screentime of 1 hour, 6 minutes, and 38 seconds from the film Paper Moon (1973). Nevertheless, O’Neal’s screentime represents a larger percentage of her film’s runtime, standing at 65.49% of 1 hour and 45 minutes, a benchmark that remains unchallenged.

Source(s): Matthew Stewart/X

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