Although their onscreen counterparts don’t always see eye to eye, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo have had each other’s backs from the beginning of their Wicked journey.
After the Jon M. Chu-helmed movie musical premiered last month, Grande revealed that she and her co-star compared contracts to “make sure we are aligned” before signing on to portray Glinda and Elphaba.
“When I got my contract, I called [Erivo], and was like, ‘Hey let’s go through this thing. Let’s go beat by beat through this together and make sure we are aligned in what we need,’” she explained during a SAG-AFTRA Foundation talk. “If [Erivo needs] something, we need it together. I want us to have each other’s backs. Your problems become my problems and mine become yours.”
Erivo previously told Deadline that sense of consideration for each other also extended to their performances, “because neither one of us is wanting to be selfish. We’re always like, ‘what’s the ground you need?’, ‘what feeling do you need?’ We are looking in each other’s eyes to see, ‘what does she need?’”
“We are friends,” she said warmly of Grande. “We are in a deeply honest relationship outside of the work. I talk to her almost every day. She messages me every day and we are always in conversation…if there’s something that I want her ears on or I want her opinion on, I send it to her. If there’s something she wants my opinion on, she sends it to me. We are always trying to be aligned.”
Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande and director Jon M. Chu on the set of Wicked (2024) (Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Based on the Broadway musical and the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel, Wicked follows the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba (Erivo) and Glinda, the Good Witch (Grande) as they first meet at Shiz University and share a life-changing encounter with the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).
Breaking multiple box office records, Wicked had a $164.2 million worldwide opening. The film has also earned four Golden Globe nominations, including Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, Best Actress for Erivo and Best Supporting Actress for Grande.
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