‘Ariana Grande’s whole life changed on camera in Wicked – people thought they knew her’

Wicked director Jon M. Chu is still firing on all cylinders, weeks into the movie’s press tour, thanks to the fevered reaction the film has received so far from fans and critics alike – and also knowing what he and his cast have in store for audiences yet to see it.

‘My heart is so full. We have had this secret for years now, I’ve watched these women perform these amazing roles, and we knew there was something really special happening,’ he tells Metro during one of his final interviews ahead of wide release.

The 45-year-old filmmaker’s enthusiasm appears undimmed for a project years in the making, after experiencing the reaction first-hand during Wicked’s run of premieres.

Speaking to him after the review embargo has lifted, he makes a joke of pretending to not know reviews are out and largely glowing (it currently sits at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes), with the movie going on to claim the biggest-ever worldwide opening for a Broadway musical adaptation.

For him, his first thoughts go to his leading ladies, Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda, as he reflects on the journey of adapting the hugely popular stage show, based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, which was in turn inspired by L. Frank Baum’s books and the enduringly popular 1939 movie musical The Wizard of Oz.

‘I saw Cynthia Erivo evolve on set and find this beautiful version of Elphaba that – even though I knew all the words – had never seen it in this way,’ he recalls of the acclaimed British actress’s take on the gifted witch and outsider who will eventually become the fearsome Wicked Witch of the West.

Wicked director Jon M. Chu is giddy over his film’s leading ladies, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures)

‘I knew that Ariana Grande was breaking ground, that people think they know her – but they’ve never seen this part. Her whole life was changing on camera,’ he continues.

Chu’s words seem especially telling of Grande’s career journey. Both stars have already been generating Oscar buzz for their performances, but her connection with Wicked goes back to her childhood, when she met original Broadway Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth, and told her after the show – aged 10 – that she wanted to play the part. The two ladies have since become firm friends as Grande transitioned out of her Nickelodeon child stardom and began dominating the charts as one of the world’s biggest popstars, thanks to hits like Problem, No Tears Left to Cry, Thank U, Next and 7 Rings.

She’s since returned to acting via a small role in Netflix’s 2021 star-studded satirical drama Don’t Look Up opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep, but it’s felt very much like all roads led to Wicked for the star, as she embarked on months of training her voice in the ‘legit’ musical theatre style required – before she even auditioned for the part.

For chart-topper Grande, the filmmaker notes that people ‘think they know her’ – until now (Picture: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AG)

She plays ‘good witch’ Glinda, a character first brought to life onscreen in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures)

The hype that this has created for the film alone clearly thrills Chu as well.

‘To share that, and to see people’s excitement that they’re actually connecting to that, and they’re feeling empowered coming out of this movie, standing up, crying, laughing, whatever it is – that’s why I got into this business, so it means the world,’ he says.

The excitement fizzing around Wicked is hard for anyone to deny, and Chu is a master at musicals having already delivered a lively big screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning musical In the Heights in 2021.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t more than aware of the massive challenge behind Wicked though, one of the most popular stage musicals of the last 20 years.

Chu was more than aware of the challenges and expectations that came with directing Wicked for the big screen (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures)

For Chu, ‘every inch’ of the movie is something he admits had him taking intimidated gulps ahead of time. But the ‘biggest itch’ was how they would make this film ‘feel like one movie’ when there’s a part two out next this time next year.

‘I knew we had to do this structurally, it made a lot of sense. We couldn’t have done it the other [way], we tried to rip it apart and it would turn into not Wicked anymore, so this was the purest form of doing that,’ he explains animatedly. ‘But I knew that an audience would not accept a half a movie if we didn’t do this right.’

Tidily, Wicked (Part One) covers the first act of the stage musical, ending with the super-climactic Defying Gravity solo for Elphaba, utterly iconic to musical fans across the globe. But it wasn’t simple as lopping the musical in half there just because that’s where the interval fell.

‘We had to make sure that Defying Gravity – which is a gift in itself, but that on its own wouldn’t satisfy – it had to have all the emotional plumbing from the beginning of the movie that you rooted for Elphaba to have this moment.’

This was something that Chu admits ‘haunted’ him with worry until it was finally cut together for a test audience screening. While it has been treated with the proper reverence as expected, it is hugely expanded – and interrupted – to run over about 20 minutes at the movie’s denouement.

‘If Defying Gravity doesn’t land, you don’t have a movie,’ states Chu of the film’s climactic song, which is iconic for musical fans (Picture: Universal Pictures)

As Chu points out of the film’s magical final song: ‘If you don’t land that – or take off there – you don’t have a movie. In a weird way, that was the heart, and you had to go backwards from there.’

As a movie musical with a rumoured $150million (£119.4m) budget (and reportedly as much as $350m (£278.5m) for both parts, the highest up-front investment from Universal ever), it has been delighting fans with its cinema-scale versions of beloved locations.

‘When you’re using all the levers of cinema to build Shiz, Munchkinland, a giant train, or the head of the wizard that actually moves in real time – those were great engineering feats that took a lot of work, and I had to convince the powers that be to pay for that work. We had to gather a crew that was capable of pulling off that work [too].’

Wicked also needed to not be ‘taken over’ by the technical and remain centred on Elphaba and Glinda’s relationship.

Wicked creates its own versions of places like the Emerald City, but the movie is more about Elphaba and Glinda’s relationship than any impressive technical elements (Picture: Universal Pictures via AP)

Both Grande and Erivo have generated awards season buzz with their performances (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures)

‘My antennas always had to be up, and I always had to be on my toes to make sure the focus was right and where it had to be. But you couldn’t let your foot off the gas at any moment,’ Chu adds.

2024 is a less welcoming landscape for movie musicals now compared to 1939, with recent musical films like Wonka and Mean Girls even avoiding having singing in their trailers. However, The Wizard of Oz is still paid appropriate homage.

‘We wanted this movie to feel like it has always been there, like it was just on our shelf, and we just forgot to look at it,’ he explains of the film’s timeless vibe, emphasising that it wasn’t about using ‘all the toys’ and drone shots that they could have, but allowing it ‘to feel like a nod to the Golden Age of Hollywood’.

At the time of our chat, the handful of (very few) negative-leaning reviews of Wicked are all written by male critics, and I make him laugh when I ask if he has an opinion on why musicals can inspire such a strong divide between genders.

Chu was keen to include plenty of nods to The Wizard of Oz as such a popular movie musical – and a prior telling of where Elphaba’s story will end (Picture: Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Chu wanted to appeal to a wide audience with Wicked, including people who ‘know nothing about The Wizard of Oz’ (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures)

While acknowledging that ‘everyone has their own opinions about certain things’, Chu wants to appeal to a wide demographic.

‘I make movies to get an audience that appreciates what we’re going after, and convincing others to go after. We made this for people who knew nothing about Wizard of Oz, who know everything about Wizard of Oz, who knew nothing about Wicked, who know everything about Wicked, people who are in love with the book…  

‘For me, I hope that anyone could come in here and see this and connect with it in a way. But if [there are] those who don’t, I don’t know, it’s their own issues!’ he chuckles.

He also reveals how careful he was to ensure that the dancing and singing ‘comes out as naturally as possible as just an extension of the form of what we have’.

‘I mean, we have score in every single movie, and yet people aren’t like, I don’t go to a movie without score! It’s just a part of it. And I think that that’s how I see musicals. It’s just a part of the score, part of the dialogue,’ he shrugs.

Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, the intention of who’s character was adjusted to make him fit better in the storyline with Elphaba and Glinda. ‘Johnny’s the best to do it,’ praises Chu (Picture: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures)

Wicked has already broken records on its opening weekend (Picture: Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImage)

Chu is not one for playing an intro and dimming the lights before a song starts – ‘that’s not the way I feel musicals’.

‘It’s when words aren’t enough, you express yourself in any way. I can express it with a camera [or] with a lighting change, or I can express it with the way that the actor is able to give the audience at home an inside look of what they’re feeling.’

And with that, modern movie musicals master Chu is in complete agreement with Lady Gaga, despite her reluctance to label Joker: Folie à Deux a musical.

But with Wicked, there’s no hiding its unabashed singing and dancing – and it wouldn’t work any other way.

Wicked is in cinemas now.

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