Ariana DeBose Wants To Make It Very Clear She’s ‘Not A Musical One Trick Pony’ (Exclusive)

The actress, who starred on Broadway and in Netflix’s The Prom before her Oscar-winning role in West Side Story, is appearing in three films this year that aren’t musicals, starting with the space thriller I.S.S.

That film, in which she plays an astronaut aboard the International Space Station as worldwide conflict breaks out below when on Earth, will be followed by the action-comedy Argylle, Marvel flick Kraven the Hunter and, at a later date, the horror movie House of Spoils.

TooFab caught up with DeBose ahead of I.S.S.’s release later this week, where she was asked whether she ever had a hard time being considered for non-musical roles after building up such an illustrious resume thanks to her vocal abilities.

“I think the answer is, ‘Yes, and ….’ right?” she told TooFab. “With these films you just named, Argylle, House of Spoils, Kraven, there have been directors who have been like, ‘Yeah, you can do more. It’s very clear you can do more.’ But I still can feel the pressure of wanting to make it very clear that I have more to offer.”

“That’s not about proving myself, but it is about making it very clear that this is not a musical one trick pony, this is someone who does enjoy challenging themselves and trying new things,” she continued. “I will take on the responsibility of doing the work to achieve that.”

In I.S.S., she stars alongside John Gallagher Jr., someone who has also done just that after winning a Tony for his work in Spring Awakening and starred in American Idiot.

“Did you see him in The Newsroom? That was an incredible, incredible show. I think he sang maybe once, but again, the work speaks for itself,” said DeBose. “We made the film during the pandemic, so we were all in a pod together, so we geeked out a fair amount over musicals.”

Stepping outside her musical comfort zone, comes with a new set of skills — like tackling wirework to mirror the weightlessness of zero gravity.

“It was tough. It was fun. I think for about the first 4 days, it was awesome, we were discovering new things and I was ice dancing through the air,” she told TooFab. “And then about a week in, you get to the real, I’m sore, my abs hurt, I’m using every muscle in my body to try and achieve this illusion of weightlessness. And we all had different levels of physicality, right? So it was challenging for all of us. I have to say, I was very impressed with [costar Masha Mashkova]. Masha is just good at absolutely everything, brilliant actress and she was great in a harness.”

She added that being together inside “very tight knit quarters in every possible way” while filming on their makeshift space station led to her running “the gamut of emotions.”

“I think we were really lucky to have a really great connection with each other. We found ways to infuse it into the work or diffuse it, which is a skill,” she joked. “I can tell you, the longer I work in this industry, it’s a skill.”

We spoke with DeBose ahead of Sunday’s Critics Choice Awards, where she bizarrely became the target of a joke grouping her in with “actors who also think that they are singers.” If her facial expression when it was read wasn’t confirmation enough, she took to Instagram after the show to add, “No I didn’t find it funny. Lol.”