Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Jon M. Chu’s WICKED: FOR GOOD is a compelling conclusion to last year’s sensational WICKED: PART 1. And in this second act, the stakes are raised, the deeply layered themes crystalize and the sublime songs soar. When we reunite with besties Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande), they’re finding it difficult to maintain their friendship given they’re now on opposing sides of the kingdom. Elphaba has been exiled and Glinda has been embraced by the people of Oz. However, that hasn’t stopped the pair from hoping that one day, they’ll be able to coexist again.
At the film’s recent virtual press conferences for journalists in the Critics Choice Association, the dynamic duo discussed everything about this beloved musical-turned-silver-screen-spectacular.
Though audiences had a yearlong break in between films, the cast and crew filmed both parts at the same time. Grande was totally up for the task and explained how they pulled off this gigantic feat.
“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the week we would be filming part one, and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we’d be filming part two. I really enjoyed it. The process is my favorite part. Like FOR GOOD was shot on a weather cover day. We were supposed to be outside at Munchkinland, doing something completely different, and we ended up shooting FOR GOOD this emotional climax of the movie, on a random day.
For me, it’s all about the preparation. If you know the person from the inside out before you get there, you can kind of throw everything away, and forget about it, and then respond honestly in the moment. My favorite thing is that spontaneous call and response that we do as actors. And I loved the back and forth. It was a thrill. It was the biggest challenge, of course, as well, emotionally. It was so gratifying. The thing that I miss is that dance.”
Erivo and Grande both had a fun time with their individual processes, breaking down their character work and the sound of their musical numbers. Erivo stated,
“My process, I do it bit by bit. First, I look at lyrics. They’re the jump-off point. They’re the touchstone. So you have your set melody, and whatever sort of shifts you decide to make, whatever lilt you decide to make is informed by the story you’re trying to tell.”
She elucidated,
“We’ll go back to ‘I’m Not That Girl.’ When we were recording it for film, Jon realized that it had come after a really intense moment of connection and now was a moment of reflection. There’s loads of silence before she even says the first word. And in order to come into the song, it’s sort of like the admission that this exists. There’s a trepidation And now it’s not so much about just saying the words, it’s now about understanding what actually happened in this moment. It’s like you start with the lyric, you take the melody, and you combine to find out what story we’re actually telling.”
She continued,
“You can then decide how much detail to put in it, how much space – whether you need to pause. Whether there’s aspiration (like air in the song). The tone with which you sing it with. Or is it confident, which is, which is a forward force. And then when you learn the whole story, when you can find the journey through it, then the push and pull starts to happen.”
Grande was curious about Glinda’s backstory and psychologically assessed what drove her to be the person who we know in her adulthood.
“One of my favorite things to do was to get to know her as a person, the way that I know myself. I wanted to know why she needed to be this popular thing and why she needed that external validation at the beginning. Her childhood was something that I referenced a lot, and I wondered if her parents ever drove her to school, or if someone else did that for her. Like feeling important in the way that she’s always ached to feel important versus what she was actually given. Where those traumas started and mapping out her insecurities.”
In order to do this, Grande got into the methodical logistics.
“I used a color coding system. I had sticky tabs, and I would kind of have a tab for each little like insecurity, or like emotional thing that was peeking through. When she feels safe was a different color than when she feels like not chosen, was a different color. I wanted to map it all out so that in my brain I knew where everything was coming from, before we got to set.
Then by the time we got there, thankfully that work was just in my system and I could throw it away, so that when I needed those triggers available to me, they were just there. I think even underneath the comedy, they were still existing and that’s how comedy works is when it’s coming from a truthful place. So that was my way of navigating it, was just lots of preparation, and spending a lot of time with her, and getting to a place where I didn’t even know where I ended and she began. It was like we were just one for a while.”
Erivo found it “delightful” to be able to lay the groundwork for the performance and also sound of her original, rousing anthem, “No Place Like Home.”
“Music is sort of like my other language, and so whenever I get the chance to really dive in to music, I am in heaven. To work on the new song with Stephen Schwartz was one, an honor to work with him, and two, just really, really fascinating to discover and mine it for the story that was true to Elphaba. It’s one thing to sort of sing a new song, and it’s another to be able to make it the character’s own – and that was lovely.
To find the new sort of nuances within the music, just was always a new learning curve for me. It wasn’t that I set out on purpose to make the music my own, it’s just that our voices are so different to everyone else’s voices. We sing the way we sing, and the other Elphaba’s sing the way they sing, and there’s no way I can mimic. All I can do is use the tool I have to make the sound I make, and so, it’s tailored to what I have already. I’m just glad I could be a part of it, to be honest.”
Grande was equally thrilled to tackle her new character-driven ballad, “The Girl in the Bubble.”
“It was daunting and also so incredible – the privilege of a lifetime to originate a Stephen Schwartz song. Of course, there’s a scary element. It’s a new piece. So to be trusted with that was all of the right kinds of nerve-wracking, and also such an honor.”
She illustrated further,
“What I love most about it is that it’s a narrative piece for [Glinda]. I’m so glad that we get to see her experience that moment of change – that to make that choice to begin the chapter of being truly good. Not performing goodness. Not a façade of goodness. But to put down the wand and actually become truly good. I love that we get to share that moment with her, because it happens in the wings of the Broadway show. You see the before and after moments, but to see that moment is a gift.
Also just sonically, from a sonic perspective, I love that she’s singing a little bit differently in it. It’s like… half-way through the song, after she looks down the closet and sees all of her memories from easier, purer times. She really opens up, and sings vocally in a way that sounds like her guard is down. I’m proud of it, and grateful for it, for her as a character, and also grateful for the opportunity as a performer.”
Erivo feels “No Good Deed” and “For Good” provided resonant moments of which she could feel proud of having help craft.
“I’m really proud of “No Good Deed.” It was me on my own. I’m shooting against really a blue screen and a plinth and fire and rocks. I was really proud of being able to do something that was that big, that grand, and still be able to hone into the feeling, the moment.
And I was really proud of the vulnerability that we were able to achieve in “For Good.” I think that there’s a choice to back away from the hurt and pain that they both have to experience. There’s a choice to sort of avoid it. But we ran headlong into it. I think previously Elphaba has often been thought of as a really strong character, who knows their self and is very, very confident. I think that we’ve been able to crack open her vulnerability, crack open a softer side of her that hasn’t necessarily been on show before.”
She also loves that we’re seeing a more 3-dimensional, fleshed-out portrait of Elphaba.
“To reveal the human, the real humanity within and to crack open a weaker side of her that has to sort of let go of things. And that’s something that I’m really proud of, that we sort of humanized this character – someone whose heart really beats, who has guttural instinct, who has heartbreak, loss, grief, hurt, love, lust, and desire. We’ve been able to make that real.”
WICKED: FOR GOOD puts a substantial amount of good out into the world during the tumultuous times we are find ourselves in. Grande said,
“I am so thankful for the themes of this, and how it challenges people to kind of look in a little bit.”
Erivo said,
“To play a character like this wasn’t just an adventure, but it changed things. It helped people – that work like this can actually shift the way people feel, and think about themselves, and others. And that, that is… that’s really special.”
WICKED: FOR GOOD opens on November 21.
