Originally appeared on E! Online
This article contains spoilers for the movie “Wicked: For Good.”
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande changed the ending of their “Wicked” story, for good.
And that manifested itself in unscripted parts of what many fans will consider to be the most emotional moment of director Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked: For Good:” Elphaba and Glinda’s final scene together, in which they sing about how their friendship has changed them in the song “For Good.”
“We’d sort of run through what it could be, and then right after the song where it would end, we just kept going,” Erivo—who reprises her role as Elphaba—told Today in an interview released on Nov. 21, “and Chu just didn’t stop us.”
In the scene, after the friends-turned-adversaries finish singing, Elphaba tells Glinda she has to go now, after which Grande improvised the question, “What’s going on?”
And that wasn’t the only ad-libbed line.
“I said, ‘Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine,'” Erivo recalled. “Not scripted.”
READ Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo Shares Emotional Goodbye to Elphaba for Good
More improvised dialogue continues after Elphaba finds Glinda a closet for her to hide in. Before the door closes, the two tell each other, one after another, “I love you.”
“The moment that I tell her I love her at the door, and she says it back, that was not in the script,” Erivo noted. “All of that was sort of what she and I found in the room.”
Chu, she explained, let them be in the moment.
“I think both of us were just figuring out how each of our characters would actually say goodbye,” she said. “Even through the song, there wasn’t much direction. He just let us sing to one another. Tell each other the truth.”
And no one mourns the end of Wicked the two-part film more than its stars. On Nov. 21, the day “Wicked: For Good” was released, Erivo shared her own personal goodbye to the franchise that changed her for good.
“I could write you an essay, a poem, Shakespearean prose, to describe what this journey has meant to me, what lessons this time has taught me, bought me,” she captioned her Nov. 21 Instagram post. “I could try to give a metric to the love I have felt and experienced. I could give a number to the stories I have heard. The truth is the numbers are too small and the words are not enough.”
“So I’ll simply say this,” she continued. “Take my hand and walk with me to the end of this road paved with gold and hopefully, the things that I’ve found, might find you too. Thank you for letting me be your Elphaba.”
PHOTOSWicked, Cynthia Erivo, Elphaba, Ariana Grande, Glinda
Ariana Grande is using her powers “For Good.” The “Wicked” star sent 9-year-old influencer and Ari superfan Brielle Bird a special care package amid her Stage 4 cancer battle.
