The Wickedly magical world of Jon M. Chu, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo

Leave it to creative genius Jon M. Chu to be able to create a world so magical and enchanting that the universe has been tinted pink and green for several days already with the critical and box office success of the musical fantasy film "Wicked."

Based on the 2023 stage musical of the same name which was based on the Gregory Maguire 1995 novel, "Wicked" stars the talented actresses-singers Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp (the future Wicked Witch of the West) and Ariana Grande as Galinda Upland (the future Glinda the Good Witch).

The movie, which is set in the Land of Oz mostly before Dorothy Gale arrives from Kansas, shows Glinda the Good Witch telling the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, how they met, became friends and how they went on to different paths.

The film also stars Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero), Ethan Slater (Boq), Bowen Yang (Pfannee), Marissa Bode (Nessarose), Peter Dinklage (Dr. Dillamond), Michelle Yeoh (Madame Morrible) and Jeff Goldblum (Wizard).

We were able to interview Chu, Grande, Erivo and producer Marc Platt in a press conference and they discussed the making of the musical, the challenges of creating the fantasy film and working together to create the dream world.

Jon M. Chu (Director) and Marc Platt (Producer)

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

The play "Wicked" was based on the book by Gregory Maguire. What was it about the book's story and themes that inspired you to envision the play as a musical, and subsequently, narrative-wise, what was it about the play that inspired you to adapt it for the big screen?

Marc: The book, Gregory Maguire's novel, is actually based on the Frank Baum Wonderful Wizard of Oz series of books that was written in around the year 1900. And when I read that book, I thought, "What an interesting way to tell a story, by taking familiar characters, but having them go and take unfamiliar turns." And it was, of course instantly a world, because it's Oz, and it seemed to have a strong resonance in it, about the world we live in, about finding and seeing things and looking at things a different way, things that you think were true, that maybe they weren't so true. And it was wildly entertaining at the same time.

So, I initially started it as a film, because I felt it was so cinematic, the world, but the screenplays I developed didn't have any magic to them. They weren't wistful, they weren't elevated in a way that was exciting to me. And one day, I got a phone call from Stephen Schwartz, the renowned composer, who said, "I know you have the rights to Wicked. Did you ever think of turning it into a musical, a stage musical?" And the moment he said the word music, I thought, "That's exactly what's missing." This is a world that wants to sing, and music elevates it, and brings whimsy and emotion and feeling to it, number one.

Number two was I was trying to get at the story of these two women and their relationship, and each of them are living in a world where they present themselves as one thing to the world, but they're feeling something different inside. And in a musical, you can literally sing what you're feeling, and only the audience gets to experience that. So, it felt like it was the perfect idea, and so we did.

We took it to Broadway 22 years ago. It's been a huge success ever since, seen around the world, over 65 million people have seen the musical. And we started the musical in San Francisco prior to going to Broadway, and we ran there for five weeks, I was there every night, and unbeknownst to me, one night in San Francisco, a young USC film student was home visiting his family, and he was raised on all things music and pop culture and opera and shows, and he and his mom decided they were going to go see this new musical that was playing at the Curran Theatre. And that was, even though I didn't know it at the time, my first experience and encounter with Wicked and with Jon Chu.

Fast forward many years later, and Jon pursued this project, and when the time was right, he was certainly the right person for the job. And I'll let you say what interested you and why you pursued it so much.

Jon: Yeah, it was crazy to be there that night. And I remember sitting there in the theater, and being blown away by this beautiful piece, with my mom by my side, something we had done since I was a kid, being blown away by this story. Wizard of Oz had meant so much to my family. My family came over from China, and Wizard of Oz had such the American Dream resonance inside of it. And so, we all thought the yellow brick road, Wizard on the other side of the rainbow, we're going to search for these things.

And so, to see a different version of that story, to see the true story of the witches of Oz, and then had this spectacle feel like it was a movie, and we grew up on movies. So, having a stage show on a proscenium feel like we were immersed in it, I knew what this movie could always look like. I was so excited for like, "Wow, this musical is incredible, these girls are amazing characters." It really moved me, it moved my family, and I knew that someday, some filmmaker was going to come along and make a great movie out of this. I just never, in a million years, thought 20-something years later, it would be me, and me at this moment. So, it's been really an honor to be a part of this family.

We love how the movie invites the actors to interact with their environments during their songs, such as in the library number with Fiyero, or in Defying Gravity in the tower. How did you work with the production design team on these specific scenes?

Jon: We were inspired a lot by the L. Frank Baum original text and the drawings and the Denslow drawings. So, every piece of design, we wanted to create a world to immerse the audience into it, break the matte painting of... Oz has been visited several times in our lifetime cinematically, and so we wanted to give the audience an experience that they couldn't have before, where we break the matte painting. It's a touchable world, where things are physical, you can touch the ground, you can touch the thing, there's scratches and dust.

And so, for something like Shiz University, for instance, we wanted to build it. We wanted to make it feel like you could walk in and touch those books. We knew that everything in Oz, unlike... In Wonderland, it's sort of meant to drive you a little bit crazy, a little bit nuts. It doesn't really make sense. And in Neverland, it's supposed to make you feel like, oh, it's play, it's how you saw the world as a kid. And in Oz, what we realized is it is delight, it's the story, it's distraction, it's to keep you... Happiness is the most important thing, while other things may be happening behind the scenes. So, everything we thought was, "It has to be delightful."

So, we worked with Nathan Crowley to build everything, he's a wizard in himself. And we wanted to build this giant university that had water actually flowing. In the Denslow books, everything was connected by water, not road. So, that was an interesting thing to add to this, into our thing. We built giant forests, where actual birds nested in there, and whenever Cynthia would sing, the birds would sing. We built the yellow brick road in Munchkinland, we can walk into those places. Emerald City, with a giant 60-ton train. Nine million tulips that we actually planted, barley that we actually planted. So, from day one, we wanted this to be a physical world, and Nathan Crowley, and of course, Paul, our costume designer, to make these things, the costumes, physical and touchable, and have culture underneath it, not just costumes for characters in a fairy tale. This had culture coming through and through with it. And that's how we all collaborated on it.

Marc: And I'll say to the point of the interaction of music and dance and the environment, such as the library and the wheel with... It takes a couple of things to accomplish something that extraordinary, and that is imagination, which this man has boundless amounts of, and an intuitive sense of how music does interact with character, and environment, and camera, and movement. And as someone who's produced many musicals, many of which have been thankfully recognized by this organization, that kind of intuition is something you can't teach someone. It is embedded in them, it's a feeling, it's a musicality that you feel.

And so you need someone who can take the environment, who can take the character, who can take the camera, who can take the choreography, and meld them all together so that you're not only watching a wildly entertainment musical number, you're telling a story, and you're telling a narrative story and an emotional story. And that's one of the great gifts that I think Jon possesses, which is thankfully on display when you see the film.

Jon: And going off what he said, musicals to me, it's not music... It's not a dress on a thing. It's like music is so intrinsic in how we express ourselves, and cinema is perfect for that, that the two together, that these girls and these stories, are being told so fluidly back and forth. So yes, the turning, we call it the tornado wheel, takes many engineers and a team of people to design it, makes it look that it actually physically turns, but that the movement itself expresses how they're feeling at that moment. And so every moment, from the Wizard to Defying Gravity to Wizard and I, going from the lowest bottom part of almost to the water, touching the water, all the way to the sky, but she doesn't quite make it there, we do that in Defying Gravity, to me, all those things is a layer of storytelling that's beyond what words or dialogue can really say.

Which of the intricate sets in the film was the most challenging to build and why?

Marc: The big three.

Jon: Yeah, Emerald City was huge, because there is a tradition of Emerald City and how do you walk people in? And again, we wanted to build it, we wanted all these dancers. And it's a oner, so we don't cut when you go in. We wanted to, rather than see it with the girls actually in those moments, we wanted to take the camera and actually just go first person and break that fourth wall. And so, all the dancers are around this camera. And so that meant that the physical locations had to be there with these hundreds and hundreds of dancers, with these amazing costumes, with our camera guiding us through there. And even going into the salon, you could go into the salon and see the bottles, named, and have the company Oz Tech having built those shampoo bottles or whatever. And you had VFX on top of that, so you had these animals, you had puppeteers with animals going through that. You had dancers with cobblestone, so they had to work with their heels and dance on cobblestone.

We had one shot, you couldn't break that, so we're not cheating there. So, everyone had to get in line, and you have props. And so, all those things were really, really hard. Of course, the weather in London is always challenging in itself, but that's what we love. It's like when Chris, our choreographer, and Alice, our DP, and I, and we all get together, to me, it's the magic that you cannot predict on that day. It's the thing that if you could write it down in your bedroom before and design it before, then that's not the magic, it's not special enough. And so, there's always something that happens on the day. It freaks him out, but I love that, I live off that excitement.

Marc: Yeah, and that's where the magic was created. We literally had to go an hour outside of London, to what is essentially almost a farm, and take it over to build the big sets of Munchkinland, Shiz University, and Emerald City. And it rains a lot, and the mud piles up, and the wind blows. And so, we, in creating that magic, had to deal with the elements at the same time. But every day was a joy and an excitement, and because of the fun of what we were doing, but also the sense that Jon really conveyed every day of the legacy of what Wicked was, and, "Look what we get to do today, we get to do One Short Day in the Emerald City." And that kind of joy infused everyone. And so, no matter the wind or the rain or the cobblestones, everybody was very joyful in creating that magic, I have to say.

In adapting a popular musical like Wicked, what have you done to make sure that audiences are happy with the classic text, as well as delivering your own version of the story? How are you balancing those two?

Jon: I was really lucky, coming into it, because I was a fan of the show itself, so I already knew the things that I wanted to protect. But I also knew, as a storyteller, where I felt like the tools of cinema could really do things that the stage can't. The audience is in a different position.

The thing, I was just looking at it again, realizing that in the show, the audience is on, in a weird way. Oz's side. Because in a stage show, you're outnumbered. Elphaba is outnumbered. She walks into us. And that's a different perspective than in a movie where you're sort of the world, we're building a world, and we can literally change the rules of the actual physical world there. And then the audience is usually waiting for a way in. And so, what we can do in a movie is really set up this nutty world and be with Elphaba as she walks into this nutty world. So, in a weird way, it flips the joke a little bit that I always saw it as Elphaba who's not in a musical world in her life comes into a musical and she's like, "What the hell have I just walked into?" It's sort of Pleasantville or something like that.

And over time we realize, oh, deep down in Wizard and me, she sings inside. And she's better than anybody else and she can soar. And she's ready to soar and she's just not ready. And so, the actual medium of this really helps tell the story of this by flipping that, by flipping our perspective of it and going inside out. So, for me, that was really helpful to give me a roadmap of how to present this. And yes, it's the same story but in a different way. And in my mind, I always thought, oh, Wicked the show was what someone made after experiencing this in real life, and what we were making in real life. So, it was a different type of perspective in that.

Marc: And the other challenge, which was achieving the balance between what works in the musical and what works on stage and what's beloved by an audience and what works on film, because they're not always the same. Stylistically, the way people act, the way people even sing, it's all very different. And so that was a constant balancing act.

There were times where Jon would say, "We can't lose that line. It's Bible," we used to say. Meaning the fans, and I'd be the one to say, "But it doesn't work on film. Lose it." And there would be times I'd say, "You have to say this line." And he'd say... So, it was always everyday balancing. We want to deliver for the fans, we want to satisfy, we want to give you the journey that you've known, and you love. But we want to take you on a journey you haven't been in a way that only cinema, only a big screen and a camera can accomplish. And they're not always the same. So, we worked hard to achieve that balance.

Jon: And defying gravity was one of the hardest ones because defying gravity, well one, with our camera, we can get really close. And those are the things that you want to feel defying gravity you can't do on stage. You want to hear her say, "Something has changed within me. Something's not the same." And you want to be right there with her. And yet you're in a movie, so want to feel things you could never do on stage. You want to be in the sky with her. You want to see her fly. You want to feel the exhilaration of that. And so, we debated many times about the choices of when we're with Cynthia, and of course it's Cynthia, so she's giving everything, and you want to be right there in her eyes. And so those things are fighting each other sometimes. But when we got it right, it didn't fight each other.

It felt like we flowed, we wanted to be her where she was expressing her anger or her surrender to her power. And then to express that further, we got to then pull out wider to see her flying in this great big shot of both our set and our VFX and monkeys flying after her. And so, to me, it was always in concert, it always had to be in mode. And we didn't always know the answer. Sometimes it was like, "My instinct is this, let's do it both ways and let's get into the cut and play." And sometimes he was right about certain things and sometimes I... But we would find it in that. But we always covered our bases, and we always knew eventually what the tone we wanted to feel. That it needed to feel that this was the end of a movie, not the middle of a story, that this was Elphaba's.

This is the thing we needed to root for Elphaba from the very beginning when we see her as a little girl to feel this, that she doesn't have to prove herself to anybody. That she's going to live by her own rules and that she's going to go off into the great unknown with confidence. And so, for us, that was really paramount that we work backwards from there. And again, it's music, it's stunt work, it's actual sets, it's costumes, it's visual effects, it's singing music, it's orchestration music, it's recording live vocals. It is all of those things together. It's the edit, of course. It's the camera, of course. And it's the actors, of course, who bring these characters from the ground up. So yes, it's all really interwoven together, but been great.

Jon: What is wicked, and what does change feel like, and that it's not maybe the storybook-happy fairytale ending, that happiness may be not the goal, that it's actually messy. And, through this relationship, we see the messiness, and we see the nuance that we're a little bit good, we're a little bit wicked and, sometimes, you have to get angry. Sometimes, it's not about staying silent and proving ourselves. Sometimes, you have to yell at each other. And, sometimes, one crosses the line and, after that, sometimes, it's about giving grace to somebody else and forgiving each other because the only way out is through.

That story stayed with me my whole life. And so, at this point, when they came to me with the movie, it was during the pandemic and lockdown, and I remember thinking, "Is this story still relevant? And does this need to be made now?" And, in those words, something has changed within me, something is not the same. I felt like that's what the whole world is feeling.

We have taken the curtain off the storyteller. Technology has brought us together. Communication has made us all roommates all of a sudden, and now we have to live with each other's mess. And that's the first time in human history that we've become this close. And how we move forward is we actually have to look at each other and hear each other and deal with the mess. And this story perfectly puts that into a beautiful relationship story and connects with us and that, yes, it may not be the happy ending that Wizard of Oz, this yellow brick road that you have to follow and there's this wizard that's going to give you all your heart's desire, that maybe you have to save yourself and it's up to us. And I love that about this. That has always driven us, at least for me from the beginning of this movie, that this is actually an urgent story that needs to be made right now.

And these girls perfectly embody that actually. We all feel like Elphaba, and we all feel like Glinda. At some point, we have to pop our bubbles and see other people's issues. And, sometimes, we always feel like we're out. We'll never be that girl, and so I think that those things, I think, resonate in us.

What was your approach to assembling this incredible ensemble of performers?

Marc: With Wicked, it's always been important to cast all these wonderful characters. But, at the end of the day, it's really about the two girls because of their journeys individually and then as a couple, really as friends, as individuals who give each other something in many ways, complete the other and journey. As big as the world of Wicked is on stage and, certainly, on film, so much of it is just conversation between these two characters. And so, in casting the show, we were lucky to find an amazing cast that we still have every day to this day, but we started with Dina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.

And the way Jon and I worked together was the way I've done all my musical films, which everybody has to come and audition because you want to make sure that actors who sing can really sing and singers who sing can actually also act and find the whole thing. And I'll let Jon take it from there. I will say one thing that I found very moving, maybe it's just personal to me. It's that Jon would begin every audition where every girl that came in... 

As you might imagine, we had wonderfully talented women come in from the film world, from the Broadway world, from the music world, pop music world, and he'd begin every audition by, "Tell me your experience or your first encounter with Wicked," something I never thought about. And everyone who came in had this amazing story, like, "I made my mom and dad drive two hours to Indianapolis to see the tour when it came to town. I'll never forget this and that." From the get-go, it was just very moving, so, even in the audition process, we felt this sense of something much bigger than us. And I'll let Jon tell how he found his cast.

Jon: I've never gotten more emails, calls from random people about trying to audition for this movie. I mean, Elphaba and Glinda are iconic characters. And they're star-making characters, and so I love the fact that everyone had to come in and you had to earn it. In fact, when I came in, I was like, "Let's find no-namers because this is big enough to do that." As you get through it, you realize, oh, the songs are tough, the emotions are tough. You have got to have people who know exactly what they're doing. And, of course, we saw so many people. Everyone was fantastic. It all comes down to, when I cast, whether it's Crazy Rich Asians or in the Heights, so this, it's like, who takes it? Who takes it right now? 

And, when Ariana came in... I mean, Glinda is tough because you don't want an imitation. Kristin is so iconic that you don't want imitation. There are iconic moments that you have to play, but also, they have to live in this character. And I knew the way into this movie was the inside out, so I needed an actor who was experienced enough to understand that, skilled enough to do that and was confident enough to be able to go back and forth between what they love about Glinda the character and living in that character, what new things come by living in that character. And, every time Ari came in, she came in three, four times or something like that, every time she came in, she was the most interesting person in the room. I was resistant.

I was like, "Ariana, Grande is a big name. That's a giant thing to put on to Wicked," but there was no question every time she came in that you just wanted to see more of that. You're like, "She can do that? She's really funny. Wow, she can go that deep. I can't believe it. She's got to come in again. I can't believe it." And then she would come in, and she'd be even better. I think the revelation that people will see when they see Ari is a discovery actually, which is crazy.

And same thing with Cynthia. Cynthia, she is such an icon already. And my worry was, if she comes in, does she bring all of that or can she show us the secret that she has of being Elphaba, which is so important to this story, particularly the movie one. And she came in with a T-shirt and jeans. The night before, she sold out of a Walt Disney Music Hall or whatever, and she came in the next day, and she just sang and acted in the scene in Wizard. And I saw this vulnerable little girl. She was so young and lost, and I loved that. And we looked at each other immediately and knew that was done, that was a done deal. Her voice has some sort of... It's a physical something that gets into your lungs. It's really crazy.

So, those two, if you don't find those two, you don't make this movie. We knew that from the beginning. We were getting to a place. We're like, "These are all great, great people. Is this a reason to make this movie?" I don't know. But, when we saw those two, it was the reason to make the movie and make it right now.

Can you talk about the process of the cast singing live and how much that impacted the depth of the performances and the film overall? And did you always know you wanted the cast to sing live during shooting, or did that change after everyone came together?

Jon: Well, for me, I'll say that I didn't know if it was possible because I knew we had wind, and I knew we had effects, and I knew we had explosions. There were just things that were going to happen, that, yes, you can record, but, actually, they're going to be running. Is that going to be the best thing? So, I was skeptical.

But, of course, we hired actors who could flow very seamlessly through music and dialogue. They're the best singers in the world, so that was encouraging. And I think it was more on the day when we were there that it felt like they were expressing themselves better by singing it live, and they wanted to, too, and we leaned into that. It's just one of those things that just began to happen.

Marc: There's a kismet to the whole thing, which is why sometimes you wait 20 years from something that's successful on stage till you make it on film, to have two girls who could sing live because they're such great vocalists. But, by singing live, to Jon's point, they weren't songs. They were scenes. And you'll see that when you experience the film. It's dialogue. It's emotion. It's feeling. And to be able to do that live is everything because, in some cases, Ari's having to be very, very funny and, in other times, having to be emotional or to express sadness and, same thing with Cynthia, joy and wonderment and possibility, but sometimes anger, sometimes yearning, "I'm not that girl." So, to act it on camera, because they have it, those great abilities, those great instruments, but they're actors, and so it really makes all the difference in the world.

And what people may not realize, because these two women make it look so effortless, is that, although they're acting these songs, many of them are really hard to sing, the vocal ranges are so all over the place, it requires a softer singing at times. It requires a big belt. It requires... And they did it all. It makes the performance. And so, the way you look at a musical in the best way is that the songs are scenes and they're characters, and you don't treat them differently even though they're set to music and they're vocalizing.

Ariana Grande (Galinda Upland/Glinda the Good Witch) and Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba Thropp/Wicked Witch of the West)

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

Most musicals you utilize a pre-recorded vocal track where the actors lip sync the songs, but you sang live. How advantageous was this for your performance and did you notice anything unique about the experience because one might presume a hiccup could send you back to square one?

Cynthia: It was very advantageous for us to sing. We knew that we were going to do that from the beginning. We're singers, is what we love. And it allowed us to get closer to the action, to the feelings that we wanted to share within these characters. And on top of which singing live gives us the capacity to play. If we're pre-recorded, you can't really move outside the margins.

Or improv or change. So, singing live gave us the chance to really play with the character, play with the music a little more and have more fun.

Ariana: And also connect emotionally. I think a lot of these songs are far too emotional to be stuck to a track.

Because we were catching our breath for half of the time, just holding each other. But also, we have to do it live in solidarity with the many beautiful Elphabas and Glinda's on Broadway who do eight shows a week. If we have to do bajillion takes of the song, then we're going to do it with our sister witches in solidarity.

But also, the material demands it, it's too emotional, it's too spontaneous.

Cynthia: And I think we would be doing ourselves and our sisters on Broadway and any listener disservice to not try and do it live, to not connect with this music in this way. So going back to the beginning and starting again, never a problem, a joy.

The story of Elphabas and Glinda is a path of friendship, resilience, and company. To what degree do you think the message for the world is arriving at the perfect time, the message of this film which is so important?

Cynthia: It couldn't be more perfect.

I think we arrived right on time. I think it's something that we all desperately need, connection, friendship, the capacity for change, the capacity to accept others and their differences. And hopefully this will aid that and teach people things that they might not have been willing to learn before.

Ariana: Yeah. It's a very timely and yet timeless theme for evil forces to kind of be trying to ostracize certain people or group people together or cause division. And I think that friendship and love and family, whether it's by blood or chosen family, these platonic friendships, these deep loves that we've found in each other and our people have always been the thing that helps us survive that. And I think that while it couldn't come at a more perfect time, it's also something that we've always been able to survive through love and friendship.

When was the first time that each of you heard about this story? Not only "Wicked," but also the original IP Wizard of Oz? Can you share your first encounters with either of these stories? And I know, Ariana, you have a very impassioned early attachment to stage musicals.

I was always a very big Wizard of Oz fan, even when I was a little girl. We both loved that film from a young, young age. And I just remember loving it. I had a little Dorothy dress that I used to wear. Strangely, I wore it with a Scream mask, which is neither here nor there. It doesn't really add value to the story.

But I would sit in front of the TV and study Judy Garland and how she sang and how she held her arms. And it always was an escape for me. But we've always loved the Ozian world.

Did you feel a connection to Dorothy as a protagonist, as a young woman sort of trying her find her way in the world?

Ariana: Oh yeah. I think that's the beauty of it. I think The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy and all of these gorgeous characters have been a safe space for so many people who feel alone or othered or lost or are looking for friendships.

Cynthia: I was saying for The Wizard of Oz, it was sort of the Saturday movie that we would always watch when I was younger. I think I came to it when I was about six or something. And loved the music, I've been an avid fan of Judy Garland for a really long time. I still listen to her live at Carnegie Hall record where she does "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and I think it's the last time she does it and it's heartbreaking.

And then the Wiz came along, and that Dorothy was also like, oh my gosh, I recognize her as well. Diana Ross as Dorothy was one of those moments where I felt really seen and I connected with that as well. So, there's this weird connection that happened. And then finally came to Wicked when I was about 23 at drama school, starting from the age of 20 to 23 and I was singing that music without having seen the show for three years. So, by the time I'd seen the show, I knew the music like the back of my hand and had already had an affinity for what it was saying. So, when I finally was sat in a theater to watch that musical, I was already in love.

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

Ariana, tell us about your first time seeing "Wicked" on stage.

Oh gosh. My first time seeing "Wicked" on stage was when I was 10 years old, and I was lucky enough to see the original Broadway cast. And I remember being with my mom and they were doing a Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS auction after to raise money, and they were auctioning off a chance to go backstage and to meet the cast. And I kept raising my hand and my mom was like, "Perfect, lovely. Arianna, that's good. We're good". But I was very lucky that we got to go backstage, and I got to meet everyone, and it was just a really life-changing moment. I loved the show. It stuck with me in a way that maybe nothing else had ever happened before. I deleted all of the other music off my iPod, my little pink iPod at the time, it was only Wicked. And I just remember how kind the original cast was and how exciting that was, and just leaving floating on a cloud. It was very special. It's been with me ever since.

How much pressure do each of you feel taking on these roles and joining the film adaptation of this incredible stage production?

Cynthia: I keep saying it's not the pressure. I think it's the responsibility. I think that's the thing that most is amplified for me. I just know how much this means to everyone. I know how much people connect with this piece. I know how much people love this piece, as do we, so I think both of us feel a great responsibility to give this piece back in the way it deserves to be given, and hopefully that's what we've done. But we love it very, very much. So, less pressure-filled, more the acknowledgement of how much responsibility we have to tell the story as fully and as truthfully, and as well as we possibly can.

Your characters are quite complicated and far from one-dimensional. It's almost like real human beings. What parts of yourself do each of you see in Elphaba and Glinda respectively?

Ariana: I think in Glinda, what resonates with me most is her want to become better and better. And her relationship with the Ozians is an interesting one for me. It feels a little bit adjacent to mine with my fans throughout the years and just kind of walking a particular line and just wanting to give them the best of me while also at times my heart has needed some healing and some love and TLC as well. I think that is something that I've kind of felt multiple times in my life. But I think my favorite thing about Glinda is her constant... Once she, of course, has her bubble popped by meeting the brilliant Elphaba, her constant insatiable want to become better. I think she thinks things have to be a certain way for a long time, and she discovers that they don't have to be, and what it really means to be good is ever-changing.

Cynthia: What I discovered, and I guess it surprised me, there are so many connective tissues between myself and Elphaba and the lives we live. Her relationship with her father is fractured and different and difficult, as is mine. She is the older sister, as am I. And there's that wonderful, complicated relationship you have about trying to give your little sister the space to be whoever they want to be, but knowing that you have attention on you, but you're trying to make sure there's space for your younger sister. So, I understand what that feels like. But also, in the grand scheme of things, knowing what it feels like to be an outsider, knowing what it feels like to be different, to be the one on the outside, to be a black queer woman playing this green woman has its parallels.

I know what it is to not necessarily feel like the world is necessarily made for you or makes space for you, and having to reckon with that, but also find ways of accepting it for yourself, accepting who you are fully and using that as your power. So, I think that those things combined have moved me because I see them in her and I see them in myself.

In terms of creating your characters to be different than the Broadway musical characters, what was the process like working with director Jon M. Chu to make them feel special and authentic to this production?

Cynthia: Jon has to be one of the kindest, most incredible people we have ever met.

Ariana: The best.

Cynthia: And that is not us being facetious, that's just the truth. He's just a good person, but he's also a genius. His brain works like no other. And we sort of got some insight into how he worked. He would create the frames and get the frames sketched right up until the very first beat, the very last beat. And so, we could get an understanding of what picture he was wanting to paint. But within those paintings that he had already created, he left so much margin and so much room for us to rewrite and create…

Ariana: With the performances.

Cynthia: Yeah, with whatever we brought to the table, there was always room to reshape things to make it work for us. I think we were given the permission to tell the story from our point of view within these characters. And it's not that we wanted to change the mold completely, we just wanted to be as truthful as we could in this moment. And we have so much more room to do it because we're on screen, so we can do things a little more subtly, we can do things quietly because the camera's right here up in our faces. We have, in that respect, a little... Our job is easier than the wonderful women who have to take on Broadway because they're shooting to the back of the house, and you are right here with us. But he made room for us to make those adjustments and be as intimate as we could possibly be. There was always room to play and try again and again and again, and many took over just because we wanted them.

Can you describe your vocal and dancing training regimen for the film?

Cynthia: We were mad women.

Ariana: It's such a physically demanding film in so many different ways, and that was such a glorious part of the experience. But starting with the vocal training, for me, this is a completely different style of singing for my voice.

In what ways, Ariana? How is it most different?

Ariana: Well, so in my pop music or how I usually sing, I do a lot of mixing and belting and it's a lot more in my chest register, I'd say. And even my whistle notes or things like that are in a completely different tone, whereas Glinda has a sort of operatic, very classical type of voice. 

So even though my range has always been a high range, the style of singing takes a lot of retraining. So, I started training with my vocal coach, Eric Vitro, two months or so before my first audition because I just wanted to be ready just in case. I didn't know what they were going to have me sing. And in case we did the whole No One Mourns the Wicked, I wanted to just be ready. But it's a very different style. So, everything from my speaking voice to my singing voice, everything sort of shifted because just like any other muscle in the body, the voice learns new habits with training and with time. So that was, for me, the most strenuous training was probably the vocal training. But this one, the physical...

Cynthia: Wait, don't even start with me. I wanted to say something because I don't think you even realize you became a coloratura. So, the coloratura is very hard to become, and you did it to do this, which is hard as heck, just so you know. Insane.

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

How insane? Because you're pretty prepared for everything you do, Cynthia. So, what was the level of insanity?

Well, insane like getting up at 2:00 A.M. to sing on the treadmill, to work out. Do two hours of working out, then come in at 4:00 to then have two and a half hours to 2:45 or four, depending on what we were doing of makeup before starting on set. It sounds so insane, but I felt like it was normal. I felt like there was a normal thing to do.

It's like an athlete preparing to go to the Olympics.

Cynthia: Yeah. There was never a question about whether I would do it or not. So, I guess I didn't think it was that extreme. But now when I'm stepping back, I think it was extreme. But I loved it.

Ariana: But this is also what she just does every day, too. Not to just say now you haven't come back from it.

Cynthia: No, I haven't come back.

Ariana: You're always singing on the treadmill.

Cynthia: I am. The songs really demand a lot of my body to be physical. And because I was in the air doing most of these songs, I think except for I'm Not That Girl. I was in a wire and a harness for most of the songs that I did at some point. And obviously by Defying Gravity, I was in the wires the whole time. So, I had to make sure that my body was prepared to sing in the air, which essentially means there's no ground beneath me.

I'm in a harness, there's a corset on, I'm flipping over. So, I figured out how to place it and where to put the air and how to breathe and how to make the notes as powerful as I needed to when I have nothing to push off. I had an amazing vocal coach who would work with me, who trained with me, and was on set all the time so she could reset me when I was in the air and doing that over and over again. But again, it's using that kind of power, but trying, because I usually do a lot of soul and R&B and it's lots of big belting stuff, but it uses a different place in my voice. And I'm usually on the ground.

So, I just had to find a different way of using my vocal cords combined with not being able to use, literally, without using gravity. So that was an interesting challenge, but I really enjoyed it. Once it worked, it was thrilling.

I bet you have a greater appreciation for Pink now in her concerts.

Cynthia: Oh, very much so. Very much. But I love it. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Ariana: And I have to say, just because I have to say. Being in the room for it too, the movie is mixed and mastered and finished and whatever, but being in the room while there was no music, just in her ear, wigs playing and just her voice out loud with just quiet on set, stillness was the most beautiful version of it.

I'd love to talk about costumes now. That's one of the best parts of the film. Cynthia, what was the feeling like when you put on the iconic black hat? And Ariana, can you talk about your pink bubble dress? And to what degree did these costumes help you feel transported?

Cynthia: I love that black hat. I became really protective of it. Where's the hat? Where's the hat? I'll hold it. So much to the point when I was wearing the hat in the scene, someone would ask if I wanted to take the hat off and give them the hat, and I'd be like, "No, I'm fine. I'll keep the hat. Thank you. I'll keep wearing the hat."

I loved it. And because Paul Taswell is so special, he really allowed us to mold each of these pieces for us. So we had conversations at length about what we wanted the hat to feel like, what we wanted it to look like, the angles on it, the pleating on the material, the wide brim, how wide the brim got, how quiet, how small it got, the little lift in the front of it. All of those things were really, really specific. So, putting it on felt like genuinely it was made for me.  It was not lightweight, at all.

It was even heavier because it would usually have a mic in it. So, I had a mic pack. Me and that mic pack. Me and that mic pack. So, the actual mic would be in the brim, and then the mic pack would be in the body of the hat, which is the same hat I would be wearing when I was flying. So again, to add the complication, there's weight on my head that wasn't there...

So, the only way to really get used to that is to get used to it. So, I just kept wearing it. And after a while it just became second nature. And putting it on was a really special moment, that the marking of the witch. It's how I felt when I first held my broom. And when I first got my cape, it was just like she's here.

Ariana, tell us a little bit about your connection to your costume.

My pink bubble dress, in particular, it's funny because everyone was asking me if it was really heavy because it's so detailed and there's so much beautiful beading and embroidery and everything. And it's actually 15 or 16 different layers of snaps. So, we would put on my corset and my little under-ruffle, there's a little butt ruffle that goes on. It ties around my waist. A little tiny little butt ruffle. And then they would snap on each layer one by one. It was 16 or 15 different layers. I'll get the number for you after this. But everyone was asking me if it was heavy, but it felt it was really light. And it was nowhere near the ground, actually. 

So, I felt like I was floating. I felt very sturdy and very light in it, which is funny because it's a bubble dress and it felt like a bubble. It felt like it was lifting me while I was wearing it. I think my favorite thing about that dress is how light it feels in contrast to the destruction and the grief that is surrounding the moments that I'm wearing it in. That dress just holds a lot for me and it's such a beautiful piece that has so much levity, visually and physically on me, but just the moments that play while I'm wearing it don't feel that way. And I think that was kind of a beautiful juxtaposition.

Ariana, at the beginning of the film, Glinda is a bit of a mean girl. How did you work together? That's their word, not mine. How did you work together to evolve the evolution of her friendship with her? Dear One Here, unbelievable.

I think the thing, and I don't mean to be too protective of her, I think the thing about when she's her shadow self, when she's not her best self in the beginning of this film, I think it's really unfortunate. She just doesn't know any better. And I think she comes from a place where the most important thing to her is being liked and making others laugh, and she's never had to consider at that point in her life how it impacts others. Because her whole life, she's been this privileged, spoiled woman who has just been told how great and funny and lovely and whatever she is. So, I think that deep down she has a sense of morality. You see though that she's kind of aware that she doesn't really want to do it. I think it's clear in the moment where I give her the hat before the dance.

You do see in moments in that scene that I don't necessarily want to do it exactly, but I think that the thing that makes their friendship work is that they needed to find each other. Like meeting Elphaba is the thing that pops Glinda's bubble for the first time. It's the first time that she's seeing outside of herself as a privileged woman. She is seeing the impact of her meanness, of her selfish behavior and how it hurts in real time. And that decision to never do that again and kind of say, "Please get out of my way." If you're going to encourage that to Pfannee and ShenShen, to the others in her life that are bringing out the worst in her. That's a pivotal point.

And I think they need each other because I think also this is the first time Glinda's ever been challenged in this way. And to challenge someone is a really loving thing. And I think at the Ozdust in that moment, maybe correct me if you feel, I don't know, but I think they're meeting their first true friend in that moment. I think Glinda might be popular, but she doesn't have real friends the way that Elphaba is about to become to her.

People who tell her the truth are what she really doesn't have in her life.

Ariana: She doesn't have that. And I think this is kind of like a really-

Cynthia: Meeting of minds.

I think so. I think that the Ozdust is the first time, I think Elphaba silently but asks her to do something different, challenges her with, "Will you leave me here or will you connect?"

Cynthia, the film obviously explores themes of being misunderstood and judged for things beyond our control. How do you feel the story resonates with people who've been made to feel as an outsider, especially as you mentioned, as a Black queer woman who has spoken openly about representation and inclusion?

Yeah, I think it speaks quite loudly to anyone who feels like they are on the outside, to anyone who feels like they are being discriminated against, who feels like they are on the outskirts of an acceptable community at large. And as a Black queer woman, that resonates deeply with me just because that's what I am, and I see every day in there. There are people who... I'm in a far more privileged position now, but there are things that aren't as accessible to me as they are to others. And I think that this particular role allows the exploration of that in a way that is easy to understand and gives those who don't necessarily come from that experience a chance to see what damage it can do and what hurt it can cause, and maybe to change their mind about how they go about treating other people.

What are you most excited for audiences to experience when they see this film for the first time?

Cynthia: I hope this is for everyone, Glindas and Elphabas alike. I hope that people see themselves in this movie. I hope that they are given an opportunity to celebrate their friendships, their differences, and if there are any difficulties that they are facing within those friendships, within those differences, that hopefully this gives them the permission to have conversations, to change their minds, to approach things slightly differently, to be more empathetic, to be more open to those who aren't exactly like themselves. Because the likelihood is you'll find similarities in some way. If these two women could find each other, if we could find each other, then I think it's very likely that thousands, hopefully millions of people will also find each other too.

—MGP, GMA Integrated News