‘Twinning’: Ariana Grande and Kristen Bell accidentally copy each other’s whole look in the Wicked/Disney crossover of our dreams

The 2024 American Film Institute Awards took place just last night, where 10 feature films and 10 television programs were honored for their cultural and artistic significance among last year’s efforts in their respective mediums.

Courtesy of Wicked and Nobody Wants This, the event’s attendees included Ariana Grande and Kristen Bell, who happen to be the same person. How this fact evaded us for so long is anyone’s guess, but we now have confirmation thanks to this candid moment caught on camera between the two(?) actresses.

A cynic might tell you that this was staged, but they’d only be half correct. What you’re seeing here is an instance of unintentional twinning brought on by the telepathic link shared by powerful fictional women of all creeds and backgrounds — good and antiheroic, of pure grit and an affinity for bubbles, lovingly rivaled by the Elsas and Elphabas of the world, and born of Disney and L. Frank Baum alike. Indeed, this is not a meeting of Grande and Bell, but of Glinda and Anna.

The cream-colored, sleeveless dresses and curvy ponytails worn by both actresses are indeed uncanny in their resemblance. So much so that a select few denizens of X are now demanding a mother-daughter film starring Bell as the mother and Grande as the daughter.

Based on the rip-roaringly beloved stage musical of the same name, Wicked‘s presence at the AFI Awards can primarily be boiled down to its cultural significance. Having grossed $722.9 million against a $150 million budget, the world went wacky for Wicked when it showed up in theaters, and its emotional warmth proved a considerable countermeasure to the horrors and corruption that dominate so much of the news cycle. Grande has since been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress following her turn as Glinda in the film, and the actress’ prominent foothold in the music world likely did wonders for the scope of Wicked‘s target audience.

Nobody Wants This, for its part, defied the notion that “Netflix romcom” could only ever be spoken as a pejorative. The series, which is due for a second season later this year, smartly unpacks the nuances of interfaith romance — using Bell’s agnostic podcaster Joanne and Adam Brody’s rabbi Noah Roklov as its muses — while serving up a dynamic with enough chemistry to usher BP Oil into the soup industry.

Also among the AFI honorees was Baby Reindeer, the phenomenally empathetic Netflix miniseries that cleaned up at the Emmys before scooping up the AFI Special Award yesterday. Joining Wicked in the motion picture category were Sing Sing, A Real Pain, Nickel Boys, Dune: Part Two, Conclave, A Complete Unknown, Anora, The Brutalist, and Emilia Pérez.

Elsewhere, Nobody Wants This‘ compatriots on the television side of things included Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, A Man on the Inside, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Penguin, Shrinking, True Detective: Night Country, and Shōgun.