The Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good have existed in pop culture for over 100 years. They were given new life by Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked in 1995, which was later turned into the smash hit Broadway musical of the same name.
Now, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are stepping into the famous roles for Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of the show. Their casting has been widely praised, with Oscar buzz already building for their performances. So, when GamesRadar+ met with Chu in London to talk about the movie, we asked when we knew he’d captured magic with his leading actors.
“That first day they came out, and we were shooting the dorm room scene where Elphaba moves into the dorm room for the first time,” Chu says. “It’s a scene that’s not in the show, and so it gave them a little bit of room to play something and not try to have some sort of history with it. And the moment I saw that tension between the two as she walks in, [Glinda] goes, ‘Come in,’ and Elphaba comes in like, ‘What the hell have I walked into?’ To me that said everything. And I knew this dynamic could work, because that’s the relationship that’s going to carry us through.”
As Chu explains, Grande and Erivo were also given space to put their own stamp on their characters. “They were able to play in it,” he says. “When [Grande’s Glinda] says, ‘Oh, will you not close [the window], I love air,’ and she’s playing around, that was just on the day. And her playing with that was so funny, I couldn’t stop laughing. So we just knew we had this little space to really dig out these characters for now and for them. And I can’t wait for people to rediscover each of these actors, because they think they know them. They think they know Cynthia, or they think they know Ariana Grande, but this is a totally new way to see them, and they changed, actually, throughout the whole movie.”
This freedom also allowed for Grande and Erivo to explore the deep bond between Glinda and Elphaba in a new way. “We had the show in our hearts, that was the easy part,” Chu says of crafting that relationship on screen. “We all know what it meant to us. I think it was more about digging out between them, because they were creating different characters. And even though it’s the DNA of Elphaba and Glinda, they had different touch points of what Elphaba was going through, in a weird way.
“Elphaba, in this movie, is not just a joke. She is not the butt of a joke,” he continues. “Cynthia really wanted to own her own beauty in it. Elphaba is a woman, so she would do her nails and have some sort of self respect for how she dressed, and that was a new thing, because part of it was like, what was it? Is the joke that she doesn’t do any of that stuff? But for Cynthia’s version she does, and I love that.
“Even when [Glinda] says, ‘You’re green,’ she says, ‘I am.’ It’s not a challenging situation, it’s not a sad situation, it is, ‘Yeah, that’s who I am.’ And so those little details, I think we really wanted to give room for that, for these characters, and that took maybe scene by scene as we were making it to give us more confidence that we could go into that realm, and by day three, we were full on into that. So I really hand it to Ariana and Cynthia for having the ability to bring these characters to life in ways that we maybe couldn’t have planned. But by living in the characters, it emerged.”
Wicked is in theaters this November 22. For even more on the movie, check out our Wicked review for our spoiler free verdict, or see the Wicked first reactions. You can also fill out your watchlist with our guide on all the upcoming movies of the year.