Coolidge previously reprised the role of Paulette Bonafonté from ‘Legally Blonde’ for Grande’s 2018 “Thank U, Next” music video
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Ariana Grande, Jennifer Coolidge. Photo: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty, Michael Buckner/Variety via Gett
Ariana Grande wants Jennifer Coolidge to bend and snap her way into the recording studio for a collaboration.
During an appearance on the Tuesday, July 9 episode of Evan Ross Katz’s Shut Up Evan podcast, Grande and the host called their mutual friend Coolidge to discuss future plans to hang out — before the Grammy winner detailed which songs from her Eternal Sunshine album should feature the actress.
“I would have her redo the voiceover for the ‘Saturn Returns Interlude.’ I would like a dramatic reading, please, of ‘The Boy Is Mine’ as well,” said Grande, 31, “but, like, very emotional, bringing a new perspective, and it’s very vulnerable.”
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The two entertainers’ friendship dates back to when Coolidge, 62, reprised the role of Paulette Bonafonté from Legally Blonde for Grande’s “Thank U, Next” music video in 2018.
In a 2022 joint conversation for Entertainment Weekly, the Emmy winner told Grande how the viral music video helped to revitalize her career.
“I’m curious if you know that when people ask about how my life has changed,” Coolidge told the “Positions” artist at the time. “Yes, I got to do White Lotus, but I think it really started with you asking me to be in the ‘Thank U, Next’ video.”
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“I mean, from there I got Promising Young Woman, and this whole thing. You were sort of the instigator,” she continued. “I really believe that. I think if you hadn’t put me in ‘Thank U, Next,’ and done that imitation [on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2018], I don’t think I would be here where I am.”
Coolidge later added, “I just want to thank you. I know you’re a very humble person, you wouldn’t admit to it, but I’m just going to thank you.”
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Ariana Grande. Jamie McCarthy/Getty
Elsewhere in Grande’s Shut Up Evan interview, she spoke about her admiration for another comedic actress — Kathy Najimy, who was referenced in the “No Tears Left to Cry” musician’s Sweetener World Tour.
“I forgot about the Kathy Najimy reference, but that was actually a video of my best friend, Aaron Simon Gross,” explained Grande. “When we were counting down to Sweetener coming out, I got so nervous that people weren’t going to like the album, or get it or whatever, and he was making all these PSAs for my Instagram Story.”
“He was just being different people that I loved, and he was like, ‘Hi, I’m Kathy Najimy, and this album is for sophisticated consumers of art.’ It became this thing that my fans and I loved so much that I put it in the show,” she added.
