Wicked’s Ariana Grande fought to keep iconic line from the musical

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As a gamer who has spent countless hours immersed in virtual worlds, I can’t help but draw parallels between Ariana Grande’s fight for “The Wizard will see you now” and my own quests to unlock hidden achievements or secrets in games. It’s fascinating to see such dedication and passion in real life, especially when it comes to preserving the essence of a beloved story like Wicked.

Ariana Grande dedicated herself to making the “Wicked” film as similar to the stage play as feasible.

Earlier in her acting career, the singer garnered attention by “manifesting” the role of Glinda, but more recently, she’s disclosed that she battled to incorporate a well-known quote from the musical into the script.

During a conversation on the “Sentimental Men” podcast, Grande shared that she was left astonished upon completing the script, as a well-known quip had been swapped out for another.

“The wizard will see you now” in ‘One Short Day’ was written as “Who rang that bell?”. Although the latter appears in the 1939 movie and is pronounced by the Gatekeeper, it wouldn’t have been as iconic as the Wicked line in the musical adaption.

Grande stated she felt incredibly nauseous,” she continued, mentioning that she quickly sent a subtly foreboding text to director Jon M Chu.

She remembered saying, “Call me, please.” To which he responded, “Everything alright with you?” She replied, “I’m not sure I am. Let’s have a conversation about it.

He phoned me, and I responded something like, “I’m afraid we can’t go about it that way. It needs to be, ‘You may see The Wizard now.’ Do you understand?” or simply, “I’m sorry, but it has to be arranged differently. You should come when called by The Wizard.

Later on, Grande extended contact to her fellow actor, Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba), who might have been equally surprised by the missing line as Grande was.

I spoke to Cynthia and asked if she had completed the script. She replied that she was almost finished. I then pointed out that a line, specifically ‘The Wizard will see you now’, seemed to be missing from her work. This confounded her, so I showed her where the line should be.

The two witches joined forces to “bombard” Chu until he gave in.

Next, we summon Jon to tackle this enormous issue. To start off, we flooded him with tasks. I included her in our conversation, and we both exclaimed, “We need to sort this out. It can’t be as it seems,” she stated.

Wicked is out now. Wicked: Part 2 is released in cinemas on November 21, 2025.

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2024-12-09 16:18