Ariana Grande

Nickelodeon built the launchpad. Ariana Grande played Cat Valentine on Victorious, carried the character through a crossover with iCarly and then into the spin-off Sam & Cat, which is an unusually long apprenticeship in one role for a performer who would spend the next decade being known for something else entirely.

That something else is the singing. She has a four-octave range that reaches into the whistle register, she is a Grammy winner, and Rolling Stone and Billboard have both placed her among the most significant artists in popular music. Time listed her among the hundred most influential people in the world in 2016 and again in 2019. Seven albums sit in this catalogue, from Yours Truly through Sweetener, thank u, next and Positions to eternal sunshine, and they track a deliberate move from clean retro-pop toward something looser and more conversational.

The acting came back on her own terms. Riley Bina in Don't Look Up is a pop star written as a joke about pop stars, which she plays without flinching. Then Wicked cast her as Galinda, a straight musical-theatre lead in the biggest possible frame, with Wicked: For Good following the year after. Between those two poles are Chanel #2 on Scream Queens and Penny Pingleton in Hairspray Live!, both of which now read as rehearsal.

What makes her page unusual here is that the film column and the music column are both real. Most pop stars who act have one credit worth the click. She has a decade of them on each side.