Ariana Grande stars as Tori Vega's quirky friend Cat Valentine on Victorious, and in real life, she's just as upbeat and fun! J-14 sat down with Ariana to talk about Victorious, what it's like working with Victoria Justice, and what Ariana was like as a kid!
J-14: How are you similar to your character Cat?
Ariana Grande: Cat has very emotional highs and lows, so being a 16-year-old girl, I can relate to that -- although my highs and lows aren't as drastic! She's also very optimistic and loves to make friends. I love to talk to people randomly in an elevator. I'll just be like, 'Hi, I like your hat!' I see myself similar to Cat in that way. And she loves music and makeup, so that's similar. But Cat and I are very different in our fashion sense -- she wears lots of patterns, colors, and glitter, and I wear them all conservatively. She does wear really short dresses and heels, which I love, and I would wear that.
J-14: What's your favorite part about being on Victorious?
Ariana: Working with Dan Schneider is amazing, because he's the king of kid and teen shows. I grew up watching The Amanda Show and All That. This is Dan's favorite story -- I was four years old, and I called 411 and asked for Nickelodeon in Orlando, and they connected me. I was like, 'I want to be on All That,' and they were like, 'Oh, someday, Sweetie, someday.' Now I'm working with him! It's so crazy and ridiculous. Victorious is the coolest show. I love it.
J-14: What's the cast like behind-the-scenes?
Ariana: This cast tends to love scaring each other. Half of our wrap tape was us just scaring each other. I'm the most likely to be scared because I'm a girly-girl and easy to scare. If I see a spider I'm like, 'It's really cute.' If it jumps I'm like, 'Bye! I'm out!' We're also a very musical cast, so we all go to my house because I have a fun house -- I have Wii and a recording studio, so we always jam and use my looping machine. All the boys bring their guitars and it's fun.
J-14: What's your favorite part about working with Victoria Justice?
Ariana: She's really quirky and funny, and that's really cool because she's the star of her own show! Victoria and I love making up rap songs when we're filming. [The best one] was about fruit and how we don't like cherries but we love all the rest of the fruits.
J-14: What's one thing you did as a kid that your parents still don't know about?
Ariana: I used to give the rugs in my house haircuts. I took scissors, gave them little haircuts, and put little bows on them. My mom would find the bows but she wouldn't think that's because I gave them a haircut! I actually ripped my Barbies' heads off when I was little and then I spray painted their hair with Crayola paint. I was pretty creative. There was this stage where I would wear a Scream mask around the house and have a hockey puck and would run around and say weird things that I just made up. I was always performing for someone.
Ariana stars in a brand new episode of Victorious called "Cat's New Boyfriend" premiering on Nickelodeon at 8:30 p.m. ET on Friday, October 8.
