Charli xcx Says Original ‘Brat’ Movie Pitch Was Too Label-Focused and Calls Ariana Grande’s Oscar Snub a ‘Surprise’: ‘She Is Amazing and Goes Full Force’

Charli xcx is taking Sundance by storm ahead of the world premiere of “The Moment,” a concert mockumentary in which a fictionalized version of the pop star mounts an ambitious tour for her “Brat” album. The singer joined the Variety Studio presented by Audible hours before the film’s premiere and got honest about its origins, which included turning down her label’s original pitch.

“I was approached to make a more traditional tour film around the ‘Brat’ shows I was doing,” Charli explained. “It kind of felt like a way to elongate the life span of the album for my record label. I was just not really into that. I was only interested in flipping the form of something quite traditional.”

“I was thinking of how I could put a spin on a long-form film about what I had experienced throughout the album cycle. This is where I landed, this satirical take not only on the music industry but myself. It felt like a way into talking about pop culture, fame and the loss of art the second you put something out. This felt like a rich ground to breed ideas.”

Joining Charli in the film are Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Hailey Benton Gates, Rachel Sennott, Isaac Powell and Alexander Skarsgård. Some actors play fictionalized version of themselves (Sennott), while others play fictionalized versions of real people on Charli’s team (Berlant is her make-up artist, for instance). The film is directed by Aidan Zamiri, one of Charli’s close collaborators during the “Brat” era as the helmer of her “360” music video and more.

“How cool and rewarding that ‘Brat’ was the most successful thing she’s ever done — something that she felt was such a true expression of her,” Zamiri told Variety in a pre-festival interview. “And then it’s interesting to see something like that become so global and so mass consumed that it became a commercial output for various brands.”

Elsewhere during her Sundance interview, Charli was asked by Variety’s Matt Donnelly about this week’s Oscar nominations. Charli is an outspoken cinephile, and her Letterboxd ratings often go viral across social media platforms like X and more.

“I haven’t looked at the nominations. I don’t know! I don’t know anything,” Charli admitted, although she was surprised to find out that Ariana Grande was snubbed in the best supporting actress category for “Wicked: For Good.” Grande and Charli worked together on the “Sympathy Is a Knife” remix off Charli’s “Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat.”

“Oh, Ari! She is amazing,” Charli said. “She goes full force. I literally do not know who is nominated or not, but that’s a surprise to me that she wasn’t.”

“The Moment” opens in theaters January 30, following its Sundance premiere.