The Wicked film has been three years and several gallons of tears in the making. There have been tearful duets on set, tearful wrap parties, tearful interviews, tearful red carpets, and there were, in the case of Ariana Grande , tears even years before the movie had been slated for production. (So potent was this drama kid’s dream of playing Glinda the Good Witch, and that’s before she heard Cynthia Erivo was cast as Elphaba.
) I don’t think I have ever seen two people so affected, so apparently changed by having taken part in a film. Grande and Erivo’s language, gestures, and at times entire identities have converged – or “wormed”, as the actors describe the eerie way their voices blend together – into one vision of musical theatre earnestness where everything and anything that happens in life seems an act of divine kismet. Ariana Grande in custom Versace and Cynthia Erivo in Thom Browne at the Mexico premiere.
This is probably a result of playing magical beings with a moral compass that skews saccharine. “I hope when people watch it, it will inspire them to become more empathetic, maybe to be less judgmental and give people the chance,” said Grande at the Australian premiere. “Maybe they’ll meet someone like Elphaba who will pop their bubble.
” Their path to self-actualisation – and contractual marketing – has expressed itself through the clothes they’ve worn at red-carpet events: Grande always in bouffant dresses cut from big froths of pale pi.
