Cynthia Erivo
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The cast of Wicked: For Good arrived at Universal Studios Singapore, turning the theme park into a true Emerald City moment.
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Fans lined the yellow carpet (yes, they really leaned into the Yellow Brick Road energy) as Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and director Jon M. Chu arrived for the Asia-Pacific premiere, the penultimate stop on their massive global press tour.
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But the biggest surprise of the night wasn’t anything about the film itself. It was a behind-the-scenes ritual of the evil witch herself.
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Because apparently, while filming two giant movies back to back, Cynthia had a pretty unique method of switching between Elphaba’s emotional states.
“Cynthia has perfumes that she smells to change the way she acts,” Jon M. Chu told BuzzFeed Australia.
Honestly? If anyone were to weaponize fragrance for emotional precision, it would be the woman reinventing one of musical theater’s most beloved characters. And according to Jon, the cast all had their own coaching styles: Ariana Grande, for example, showed up with “note after note after note” as Glinda.
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And considering Wicked: For Good was filmed simultaneously with the first movie, the cast didn’t exactly have any downtime to reboot. They had to remain locked up in Oz while they filmed some of the most emotional moments in history: heartbreak, rebellion, the fall of friendships and kingdoms.
Naturally, we asked Jon how they did all this without getting burned, and he kept it simple.
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“The hardest thing was just the organization. Once you started, it was staying there emotionally,” Jon added. “But when you have actors like this and a crew like ours, everyone was so connected to the reality of these characters that it actually came very naturally.”
Wicked: For Good picks up right where the first film left off, adapting the second half of the Broadway musical and diving into the deepest, most political, and most heartbreaking twists of Elphaba and Glinda’s story.