Ariana Grande originally auditioned to play Elphaba in ‘Wicked’.
The 31-year-old pop star plays Glinda in director Jon M. Chu’s new movie – which is based on Stephen Schwartz’s musical – but the filmmaker has revealed that Ariana initially tried out for Cynthia Erivo’s green witch Elphaba Thropp, and sang all of the character’s songs during the audition process.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Chu said: “We were getting mixed messages. I was like, ‘Of course she’s coming in for Glinda.’ And then my casting director was like, ‘No, I think she thinks she’s coming in for Elphaba.’ I’m like, ‘That was not the plan.’
“And they’re like, ‘Well, she prepped it.’ She was being nice to me, and I was being nice to her. We just let her do it.
“But in my mind I was like, ‘Why is she singing Elphaba right now?’ Maybe because she’s sung those in the past, but to me, she was always a Glinda.
“We didn’t know each other well enough to be like, ‘Alright, let’s clear up the telephone game here. We are here for Glinda. Right?’”
Ariana recently confirmed she had indeed auditioned for both parts, even if she “secretly knew [she] was only meant for Glinda”.
Speaking on the ‘Sentimental Man’ podcast, Ariana said: “I had an inkling in my heart always that it was going to be Glinda, but I was hearing really mixed things from people who were like, ‘Oh, they maybe want you to read for both.’
“And I was like, ‘I guess that’s because they don’t know what my voice is, and maybe they think vocally I might be better-suited for Elphaba.’
“I secretly knew that I was only meant for Glinda.”
The upcoming fantasy film – which also stars Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh – follows the blossoming friendship between two young witches before their relationship is shattered by the Wizard of Oz, who is searching for a scapegoat to shift negative attention away from him.
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In order to bring Glinda to life properly, Grande insisted on singing live during production, which she described as a “no-brainer”.
She told E! News: “It was an immediate no brainer for Cynthia and I. We both were like, ‘Well of course we’re singing live.’”
Her 37-year-old co-star agreed and added there is “something special” about performing and filming in that way.
Erivo said: “There’s something special about what happens when music is live in a room.”’
‘Wicked’ lands in cinemas on 22 November 2024.
