\n<\/p>\n
\n\tCynthia Erivo didn\u2019t mince words when discussing the challenges she and co-star Ariana Grande have faced while promoting \u201cWicked: For Good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe have come through some shit,\u201d Erivo told a packed audience at the Saban Media Center Wolf Theater during a Screen Actors Guild NomCom consideration screening Sunday night. \u201cI mean, fuck even this last week, let\u2019s be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe comments come days after Erivo intervened when a man jumped a barricade at the film\u2019s Singapore premiere and rushed toward Grande on the yellow brick carpet. Video footage showed the intruder putting his arm around Grande before Erivo physically pushed him away as security removed him from the scene. Co-star Michelle Yeoh also helped comfort Grande following the incident. The man was arrested and charged.<\/p>\n
\n\tDuring the emotional Q&A session moderated by Variety<\/em>, with other cast members \u2014 Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater and Marissa Bode \u2014 both actresses opened up about how their roles as Elphaba and Glinda have fundamentally changed them as artists and individuals.<\/p>\n \n\tErivo, who plays Elphaba, reflected on her journey from drama school student to embodying a character that once provided her solace. She recalled being 20 years old in drama school, finding safety in the music from \u201cWicked\u201d before ever seeing the stage production.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI had not seen the musical. I saw it when I was 25 and took myself for a single date for my birthday, and that place that made me feel safe, I ended up being in,\u201d Erivo told the crowd.<\/p>\n \n\tThe role forced her to confront personal fears and experiences she had previously avoided, including perceptions of beauty, loneliness and loss.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was too scared to look at what beauty is when seeing through the eyes of those who don\u2019t think that you\u2019re beautiful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \n\tGrande became visibly emotional discussing how portraying Glinda reconnected her with her craft after feeling disconnected from it.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think that spark of connection to my craft was also pretty disconnected for a little while,\u201d Grande said through tears. \u201cIt really felt like safe again to fall in love with creating and like maybe I was being seen for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe pop star expressed relief that audiences would finally understand the full complexity of Glinda\u2019s character in the second film.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI feel really relieved that people finally will get to see and know and love Glinda the way that I had to play her,\u201d she shared.<\/p>\n \n\tBoth stars emphasized the lasting impact of their collaboration, with Erivo praising director Jon M. Chu and the ensemble cast for creating an unusually close-knit family on set.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYou don\u2019t get a group of people this close often on a set, you don\u2019t earn family like this often,\u201d Erivo reflected.<\/p>\n \n\tGrande echoed the sentiment, calling Erivo \u201ca lifelong sister\u201d and describing their partnership as \u201cabsolutely the greatest gift of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhen asked about saying goodbye to their characters, Grande suggested the journey isn\u2019t over, joking about Cher\u2019s multiple farewell tours before adding: \u201cThese characters will be a part of our hearts always. They\u2019ve changed our lives irrevocably and permanently.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWicked: For Good,\u201d the second chapter in Chu\u2019s two-part adaptation of the Broadway blockbuster, continues the story of Elphaba and Glinda as they navigate friendship, power, sacrifice and the mythology that cements their legacies as villain and hero. It\u2019s among the top Oscar contenders this upcoming awards season with many predicting consecutive noms for Erivo and Grande.<\/p>\n \n\tTogether, the witches of Oz showed that their partnership is as powerful off-screen as it is on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cynthia Erivo didn\u2019t mince words when discussing the challenges she and co-star Ariana Grande have faced while promoting \u201cWicked: For Good.\u201d \u201cWe have come through some shit,\u201d Erivo told a packed audience at the Saban Media Center Wolf Theater during a Screen Actors Guild NomCom consideration screening Sunday night. \u201cI mean, fuck even this last<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[5404,2990,7420,7826,5405,1411,1021,7671,12844],"class_list":{"0":"post-33939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ariana","9":"tag-carpet","10":"tag-cynthia","11":"tag-erivo","12":"tag-grande","13":"tag-red","14":"tag-reflect","15":"tag-scare","16":"tag-wicked"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}