“She’s this very, very old person in a very young body,” the White Lotus actress said of the 29-year-old pop star.
Jennifer Coolidge attends the Los Angeles Season 2 Premiere of HBO Original Series “The White Lotus” at Goya Studios on October 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.JC Olivera/FilmMagic
Everybody knows that Ariana Grande is a force of nature when it comes to belting out pop hits, but according to Jennifer Coolidge, the 29-year-old vocalist is also an enigma outside of the studio, too. Gushing to ET Canada, the White Lotus star opened up Monday (Jan. 16) about the pair’s fateful friendship and the mystical qualities of Grande’s “rare” personality.
“I love that girl,” she told the publication. “She has so much cool. I mean, she’s at the beginning of her life and it’s like I… she is someone that is such an unusual story because she’s this very, very old person in a very young body.”
The 61-year-old actress and Grande have been friends since the “Positions” musician did a viral impression of Coolidge on The Tonight Show for Jimmy Fallon. In a full circle moment about four years later, the Legally Blonde star herself would appear on Fallon and say that Grande’s imitation brought her career out of a “dead zone” and got the “ball rolling” for projects like White Lotus, for which she recently won a Golden Globe.
“It’s really rare,” Coolidge continued. “I sometimes feel like I’m talking to someone ancient. Her take on things [and everything] is so advanced. I don’t really know how to explain her. I have never met anyone like her in my life.”
Shortly after Grande’s Tonight Show tribute to the actress, Coolidge made a hilarious cameo in the two-time Grammy winner’s 2018 “Thank U, Next” music video, which was partly inspired by Legally Blonde. For Halloween in 2022, Ariana dressed up as Coolidge and recreated scenes from Best in Show with her Victorious costar Liz Gillies.
In December, Coolidge thanked Grande personally for being “the instigator” of her recent career successes in the actress’ Entertainer of the Year cover story in Entertainment Weekly, for which the R.E.M. Beauty founder served as guest interviewer.
“I was kind of flatlining, and you got things going for me,” she told Grande, who insisted she had nothing to do with Coolidge’s resurgence. “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.”
