Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo flipped the script with a forbidden word in Wicked: For Good.
In the storyline of Wizard of Oz spinoff, no one says “I love you”, as prohibited by director Jon M. Chu.
In conversation with the Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker revealed, “Nobody says ‘love’ in Oz. That was a rule that we came into this movie with.”
However, during the rehearsal with Grande and Erivo, in an improvisation exercise, the actress devised a scenario in which they were separated by a closet door.
The version that made it to the screen has become a key moment for fans. In the scene Glinda is in tears reaching out to Elphaba on the other side, meanwhile Elphaba reaches back for a moment before going off to meet her destiny with Dorothy.
“I just realised, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the moment’,” Chu says. “[Singing] ‘For Good’ is them being there for each other. But the closet is when they can act how they really feel. That door closes, it’s like that moment that you say goodbye to someone, and you’re home alone, and the silence, and you can now let it all out.”
He ultimately felt that this was the point in film where they have to break the rule and let them say the three words.
“They can say ‘I love you’ because they’ve earned the right to say ‘I love you’,” he explained.
Grande and Erivo starred as Glinda and Elphaba the witches from classic Wizard of Oz novel.
Wicked: For Good was released on November 21.
