Ariana DeBose names her five favourite movies of all time
Winning an Academy Award for the very first theatrically released feature film of a career is an undeniably impressive achievement, especially when it was reality TV that set Ariana DeBose on the road to stardom.
The singer and actor was a contestant in the competition series So You Think You Can Dance in 2009, but little over a decade later, she was on stage at the Oscars collecting her trophy for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ after capturing Hollywood’s imagination as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story.
Rita Moreno had already won the exact same prize for playing the exact same character in the 1961 version, bizarrely elevating Anita onto the same pedestal as Vito Corleone and the Joker as roles that saw two different names win an Oscar for inhabiting the same part.
Of course, DeBose was hardly a complete unknown, having carved out a successful career on Broadway and gaining more recognition as a founding cast member of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s all-conquering musical Hamilton, but being recognised by the most prestigious awards ceremony in the calendar is inevitably going to do wonders for any performer’s profile.
Given her background, though, it might come as a shock to discover that of the five movies DeBose named as her favourites of all time to A.Frame, only one of them is a song-and-dance spectacular. “On a bad day, when I just need to sing along with a movie, I watch Mamma Mia,” she explained.
“Some people judge me for saying that,” she continued, “But the respect, love, friendship, and chemistry that is present between Christine Baranski, Julie Walters and Meryl Streep in that movie is not to be rivalled or trifled with, in my opinion”. It’s ironic for a Broadway veteran to adore a musical full of singing that ranges from the passable to the terrible, but it’s her choice at the end of the day.
The Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It also makes the cut, specifically for “Angela Bassett’s performance in it”, which made a huge impression on a young DeBose, with such superlatives as “amazing”, “incredible”, and “extraordinary” used to describe the lead’s Oscar-nominated turn.
Anne Hathaway’s breakout hit The Princess Diaries “felt like it came at the right time” for DeBose, who was barely out of her teens when it released. “What young person doesn’t want to wake up and find out that they’re a princess?” she questioned, but Mia Thermopolis’ creativity and leadership skills shone through beyond the wish-fulfilment.
Primary Colors is lauded largely for Emma Thompson’s performance, with a scene set in a hotel room marking the exact point where DeBose “knew I wanted to be an actor”. However, those four features all pale in comparison to An Affair to Remember, which the star called, in no uncertain terms, “My favourite movie of all time”.
Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant’s classic romance is celebrated as “a great example of making sure that you give as good as you get”, blowing any and all cinematic competition clean out of the water in DeBose’s eyes.
Ariana DeBose’s favourite movies:
- Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008)
- What’s Love Got to Do with It (Brian Gibson, 1993)
- The Princess Diaries (Garry Marshall, 2001)
- Primary Colors (Mike Nichols, 1998)
- An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey, 1957)
