As the 2025 Oscars approach, fans of Wicked would hope that the smash-hit musical phenomenon will get at least one award, with one of the biggest possibilities being Ariana Grande winning Best Supporting Actress and breaking an Oscars record — but she has tough compeтιтion. When Wicked hit theaters and began to break box office records, critics and audiences alike were quick to praise the particular standout performance by Grande (credited as Ariana Grande-Butera) as Glinda, the future Good Witch of Oz. Brilliantly, Grande balances the over-the-top comedy of the character and her deep kindness with equal profundity.

With the 2025 Oscar nominations now confirmed, Wicked is nominated for Best Picture but doesn’t seem likely to win, as it isn’t nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, nor its director Jon M. Chu for his achievement. The Wicked movie’s Elphaba, Cynthia Erivo, is nominated for Best Lead Actress but also isn’t a frontrunner; the movie overall could still win in one or multiple technical categories. While Grande is one of the strongest parts of Wicked and her win would be a milestone for the Oscars itself, another movie musical is dominating at the Academy.

Ariana Grande Would Set A New Screentime Record For A Supporting Actor At The Oscars

Grande Could Break The Record For The Most Screentime

Should Grande win for Best Supporting Actress, she will be the winner (in either supporting actor category) with the most screentime in her movie. 2025’s supporting actors’ races in particular highlight roles that are arguably more co-leads than supporting, including Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez and Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. While deciding which actors to submit for supporting is determined by a variety of factors, Grande is nonetheless on-screen for almost half of Wicked — 44.59% of the runtime, to be exact, while Erivo is on-screen for just over half (via Matthew Stewart on X).

There is great flexibility in these categories; Judi Dench won Best Supporting Actress for 1998’s Shakespeare in Love with barely 6 minutes of screen time (4.75% of the movie). Offering the strongest comparison to Grande’s status in recent history is Alicia Vikander, who is in just under half of The Danish Girl. Regardless of the definitions of these categories, should Grande win, she will have the most screentime of any supporting actor winner, as she appears in one hour and 11 minutes of Wicked. She is already the Supporting Actress nominee with the second-longest screentime, after Jennifer Jones for 1944’s Since You Went Away.

Why Zoe Saldaña Is The Best Supporting Actress Favorite, Not Ariana Grande

Emilia Pérez Is Seemingly The Academy’s Favorite

However, there is a major obstacle to Grande breaking this record: Emilia Pérez, which stars the currently favored winner of 2025’s Best Supporting Actress award. Zoe Saldaña has also been praised as a tour de force as lawyer Rita Mora Castro in her musical movie and won (rather than Grande) for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes this year. Long before the official nominees were announced, many realized that Supporting Actress would be a race between Grande and Saldaña, with the latter seemingly now ahead.

Emilia Pérez also emerged with 13 Oscar nominations, leading with more than any other nominee this year. While Emilia Pérez got a boost in its nominations by being an original musical that could submit multiple tracks for Best Original Song (while Wicked is largely ineligible due to its songs coming from an existing Broadway show), it is clear that the Academy likes Jacques Audiard’s musical crime drama. Additionally, while critics and audiences will all have their own opinions on which performance is actually better, Academy members may vote for Saldaña when she has been a prestige actress for longer.

Don’t Be Surprised If Ariana Grande Pulls Off An Oscars 2025 Win

It Wouldn’t Be The First Time There Is A Surprising Acting Win

However, the race is not over yet, and Grande could still surprise everyone. Multiple other upcoming awards bodies could choose Grande and sway Academy votes, including SAG and Critics’ Choice. ᴅᴇᴀᴅline argues for SAG’s influence on the Oscars, and the Wicked cast is heavily featured this year, with Grande, Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, and the ensemble all being nominated. Wicked probably also won’t win in any of the major categories, and the Academy may be included to elevate any technical wins it gets with Grande as Best Supporting Actress.

The same can be said about Emilia Pérez. Yet many are saying that Emilia Pérez‘s nominations make no sense, a debate that is probably only going to get more heated as the Oscars draws nearer, with mounting criticism of the movie’s problematic elements. Voting for Saldaña in support of the movie could lose merit, especially when it still has multiple chances at Best Original Song. However, Best Supporting Actress is proving to be such a close call for Oscars 2025 because both performances are very strong, although Grande’s win would certainly thrill a larger fanbase while making Oscars history.

Source: Matthew Stewart, screentimecentral.com, ᴅᴇᴀᴅline