With two of essentially the most anticipated film cameos of the yr, Jon M. Chu had his work lower out for him.
The Wicked director just lately recounted how he conceived an look for the unique Broadway musical’s stars Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth through the tune ‘One Brief Day’, carried out with their successors Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
“It was a tightrope that all of us needed to speak about lots, with Stephen [Schwartz] and Winnie [Holzman] as properly, the place’s the most effective place,” Chu advised CinemaBlend. “And we had them as cameo roles sooner or later, like, ‘perhaps they’re Galinda’s mother and father’ or ‘perhaps they’re this or that.’ And people have been all tremendous and good, however each time we considered it extra, it didn’t really feel — they’re on the high of their recreation proper now. They’re on the high of their recreation proper now. They’re not like some individuals who don’t do it there. [If] they’re there, you need them to do their factor, and I at all times felt like as a fan myself, if I see them on this film, I’m going to need them to do their factor.
The director defined that he envisioned a “Wizomania” sort of journey when the 2 girls arrive in Oz, impressed by the Disney journey ‘It’s a Small World’, “the place you get into a ship and it takes you thru the historical past of Oz.”
“And it was going to be a efficiency that occurs round them and all these items after which sends you again to the Wizard’s palace,” he stated. “So, we had that, as a result of we wanted to arrange what the present didn’t have an excessive amount of about, that we needed to do, which was arrange the Grimmerie, why the Wizard was right here, what the prophecy is — we had loads of info to present.”
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Depraved (2024) (Giles Keyte/Common Photos/Courtesy Everett Assortment)
Common Photos
Chu continued, “And it was throughout these conversations that Stephen and I have been speaking, and I recommended, ‘Now we have this part anyway, that’s type of exterior of the narrative that we have to give. Perhaps that’s the place you do it, so you may add a bit of sugar to the data.’ And he was like, ‘Give me one evening.’ And he rewrote the entire thing as a efficiency for these women. It was so enjoyable, that’s the place it felt like this can be a nice second of type of a send-off.”
Menzel and Chenoweth originated the roles of Elphaba and Galinda when Depraved premiered on Broadway in 2003, incomes the previous a Tony for Greatest Actress in a Musical, for which her co-star was additionally nominated.
