Ariana Grande appeared on the “Shut Up Evan” podcast for a spoiler interview about “Wicked: For Good” and revealed that “certain people” wanted to cut the shot of a door separating Elphaba and Glinda after they say their final goodbyes. The two characters break down in tears on opposite sides of the door. The image has since become a fan favorite on social media and is widely being praised as one of director Jon M. Chu’s most inspired directorial choices.
“It was a really heavy day. There was actually a conversation about… certain people wanted to cut that shot,” Grande said. “Jon was like, ‘This is the movie. There is no question about it.’ I was so grateful for how fiercely he advocated for those honest moments. It’s one of the most beautiful and connected moments in both of the movies. I’m so grateful that it’s there. It’s tough. It was very hard emotionally.”
Chu previously told Variety that the door scene was not in the original script for the movie and was added after he spotted Erivo and Grande improvising a goodbye between their characters during the film’s rehearsal process. The two actors placed their hands against an imaginary door and Chu said he “started to weep.”
“It was in rehearsals that we found it,” Chu said. “Cynthia grabs her and says, ‘Come here.’ And I’m like, where are they going? And they go to this corner, and she puts her in a box or a closet.”
The shot of the door splitting the characters comes right after Glinda tells Elphaba she loves them, which Chu also had to fight to keep in the movie since there is apparently a rule in the Oz franchise that characters do not express such a thought.
“You’re not allowed to say ‘I love you’ in Oz,” Chu told Variety. “No God, no okay, no I love you… [but Ariana saying it] was so human. It crossed over a boundary of Oz into our world.”
Watch Grande’s full interview on the “Shut Up Evan” podcast in the video below.
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From Variety US