These Wicked Secrets Will Have You Dancing Through Life

1. Who needs a great and powerful wizard? Two-time Grammy winner Ariana Grande scored her dream role as Wicked's Glinda some two decades after she met Kristin Chenoweth backstage at the original Broadway production. And she knew just who to ask to teach her the proper ploys when you talk to boys and what shoes to wear.

Grande recalled to Entertainment Weekly of their relationship, "We sent each other so many video messages." Added Chenoweth, "So many that I ran out of storage."

The two Elphabas shared a similarly spellbinding connection. 

"I did it almost immediately," Cynthia Erivo recounted of reaching out to Idina Menzel and leaving a voicemail "because I wanted to check in and say hello and connect." 

And the stage stars' role in the two-part opus wasn't merely an emeritus position with Menzel and Chenoweth making a cameo in 2024's Wicked. As for whether they'll fly into 2025's Wicked: For Good, Chenoweth told E! News, "I think Idina and I had our moment, and it was a beautiful moment. But you know what? It’s their wand and their broom."

2. What is this feeling, so sudden and new, Erivo felt the moment she laid eyes on Grande? The opposite of loathing, certainly. "The first time we met was at my house," the British star detailed to Deadline in 2024. "We sat and chatted for a good few hours—five—and I think we just saw each other immediately. It was really easy. We didn’t have to think about it, we just were there and that has continued." 

And, no doubt, it's changed each star for the better. 

"We both made the conscious decision when we met to take care of each other," noted Grande, "and that’s what we have done in the realest of ways, every step."

3. Though director Jon M. Chu said that when they started filming "we weren’t sure how much we were going to do live or not," Grande insisted it was "an immediate no-brainer" for her and Erivo to hit every note in real time. Agreed the Tony winner, "We chose to sing live because it meant that we would be further connected to the words we were saying and to each other." 

And that ensured there was no place like the film's U.K. set. Said Chu, "It was like the best concert you could have ever attended with the best seats in the house."

4. Nothing truly bad happened on set except the fact that both Grande and Erivo battled illnesses mere days before they were set to film their most pivotal songs. 

"I got Covid the week before I shot 'Defying Gravity,'" Erivo shared with The New York Times. "It was literally like, 'Sit down, Cynthia, not yet.'"

As for Grande, "Mine was the week before 'Popular.' I came to set with a mask on my final days of recovery to learn the hallway finale."

And try out a few jokes. 

"We were in the dorm room together," Grande recounted, "and I sang in her ear, 'Positive, you’re going to be positive!' But I wasn’t positive anymore, don’t worry! I took the test."

5. Grande doesn't recall one, uh, popular bit of her performance. Reflecting on her choice to enthusiastically yell, "Right!" when Erivo finished off one of her lines in the song, the singer wrote on TikTok, "The first time I heard this was when I was listening to the live take from on set in the studio (before I had even seen the movie) and I scared myself. I called Jon immediately giggling." 

Though, added Grande, "For the record, I absolutely do not remember doing this." 

6. Fully committed, the leads were game to trust their instincts, close their eyes and leap. So, yes, Erivo tried defying gravity, flying through the air on wires. "I knew going into this that stunts would be needed," she shared in a behind-the-scenes video. "And I knew that I wanted to do my own stunts." 

Which meant, "flying with a corset and a harness and songs," she noted. But "when it works, it really does feel like magic." 

As for Grande, that was her whipping around on a chandelier during "Popular", though she wasn't the one to narrowly avoid injury.

During the first rehearsal, "One of our stunt coordinators was standing in the room just to make sure that I didn't break all of my limbs," she shared on The Tonight Show. "He was standing in the corner really stoically and bravely, and my foot just kind of almost breaks his face. He just kind of toughs it out." 

7. Jonathan Bailey also got in on the action as Fiyero. The setpiece for his number "Dancing Through Life" featured three different rotating wheels, each with a ladder cutting through the middle. 

Almost 180-feet long by 145-feet wide and 45-feet high, it was "very dangerous," Chu acknowledged to Entertainment Weekly. "Insurance, alone, really didn't want us to do this." 

It was so risky, in fact, "I wasn't sure they were gonna allow Jonathan Bailey in the tornado wheel because of safety," choreographer Christopher Scott. "Which makes sense, because this is, he needs to carry on. We can't injure our Fiyero." 

Instead, they employed a collection of engineers to monitor the situation, shifting the speed as the performers leapt, turned and danced their way through. 

8. Given the option of airbrushing her skin or relying on CGI to make her appear emerald, Erivo gave the green light to the former. 

"I wanted to look back at a reflection and see a green woman in front of me," she explained in an Instagram video. "I really wanted for her skin to feel textured. When you look at it, there's freckles, and there's tone, and shade, just like skin should be. She has these green eyes that come from the genetic makeup of who she is, and it isn't just on her, it's in her."

They dubbed her particular shade "Cynthia Green." 

And to ensure the freckles were consistent, "We did, like, a vacuum-form mask of my face," Erivo explained during a November 2024 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. "Then they put little holes in the mask. So they would put the mask on like a stencil and airbrush the freckles on so they would stay there." 

9. But she was willing to fake one bit. Rather than cover up her multitude of piercings, the actress was all ears when production suggested an alternative. 

"I have a million piercings," Erivo explained to Elle, "so they brought in a prosthetic artist, who created basically a shell for my ears—those aren't my ears!"

10. Depending on how much wickedness was being thrust upon her, "head, chest, hands, full body," she told Elle of the painting process, it could take up to four hours. 

In contrast, Grande felt that all she had to do was click her heels three times. "I take the least amount of time," she shared in one on-set clip. The process involved tattoo cover-up, careful wig placement and the makeup routine that made Grande decide to transform her entire look and "relationship to makeup." 

While quite involved, "There's no thick eyeliner, there's no, like, heavy crease," she described of the beauty vibe. "The lashes are in, like, a cat shape, which still gives you the, like, cat eye lift that I usually love, but it's also just a more honest representation of what you look like." 

12. Elphaba's garb was no less considered. Inspired by the texture of mushrooms and fungus in nature, costume designer Paul Tazewell "created this beautiful pleated dress," said Erivo, "that felt like velvet with an underlay of purple and lace." 

As Tazewell explained, "It's made of micro-pleated fabric that's been laid onto a base. And it creates this undulation." 

13. Set designers didn't race past even the smallest of details. Weighing in at 16 tons, the train to Emerald City took some two days to move. And that tulip field wasn't grown with the help of CGI, rather nine million tulips were planted in a 25-acre site in Norfolk so that Munchkinland could truly bloom. 

Though they were careful not to lose site of the forest through the trees, Chu noted they meticulously created the Ozian forest.

"It's all in the details," he said in a behind-the-scenes look. "It took special effects, took visual effects. It’s pretty mind blowing to think that it can go from drawings and ideas and a dream to sitting here today."

14. Because she knew her, Chenoweth surprised Grande with matching jackets painted by Janan Studio and bedazzled by Haus of Crystals. 

"Leading my babygirl down the yellow brick road," the Broadway star wrote on Instagram in December 2024, sharing their on-set moment, "a little physical memento of our 'passing of the wand.'"

15. No doubt Erivo and Grande have been changed for good. Literally. "We have 'for good,' on our hands," Grande detailed, showing off their matching tattoos on The Kelly Clarkson Show. "We got them on opposites, so when we hold hands, they touch." 

The also received coordinated poppy flowers and hearts while Erivo inked a broom and a hat on her forearms.

"I’ve gained a sister," Erivo raved to Elle. "Both of us were blown away by how connected we were immediately."