'Wicked' director Jon M. Chu says Ariana Grande auditioning for Elphaba was a miscommunication (original) (raw)

No good deed goes unpunished...

That's exactly what Jon M. Chu discovered when he realized that neither he nor Ariana Grande were interested in her playing Elphaba in the Wicked films, despite having her prepare and sing multiple Elphaba songs for her initial auditions.

When asked if he ever considered Grande for the role of the future wicked witch, he replies frankly, "The reality is no."

"We were getting mixed messages," he tells Entertainment Weekly. "I was like, 'Of course she's coming in for Galinda.' And then my casting director was like, 'No, I think she thinks she's coming in for Elphaba.' I'm like, 'That was not the plan.' And they're like, 'Well, she prepped it.'"

Ariana Grande on 'A Very Wicked Halloween' special.

Virginia Sherwood/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Despite her bond with original Broadway Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth, and having spoken of Glinda as a dream role, casting directors assumed Grande wanted to be considered for Elphaba because she had previously sung Elphaba's "The Wizard and I" on NBC's 15th-anniversary television special celebrating the stage musical.

"The funny thing is that before this, publicly, we had only ever sung the opposite songs," Grande tells EW of her and costar Cynthia Erivo's history with the Wicked score. "I had only ever sung 'The Wizard and I,' and she had only ever sung 'Thank Goodness' publicly."

Ariana Grande as Glinda.

Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

Grande recently spoke about her first audition on the Sentimental Men podcast, revealing that she auditioned for both roles. "I had an inkling in my heart always that it was going to be Glinda, but I was hearing really mixed things from people who were like, 'Oh, they maybe want you to read for both,'" she said. "And I was like, I guess that's because they don't know what my voice is, and maybe they think vocally I might be better-suited for Elphaba. I secretly knew that I was only meant for Glinda."

Her first audition was on Aug. 13, 2021, and she was asked to sing for both roles, preparing "No One Mourns, the Wicked," "Popular," and "Defying Gravity."

Ariana Grande and Jon M. Chu.

Emma McIntyre/Getty

Chu let Grande sing all the songs she had prepared, but they found out later that neither of them seriously wanted her to be in the running for Elphaba. "She was being nice to me, and I was being nice to her," Chu says. "We just let her do it. But in my mind I was like, 'Why is she singing Elphaba right now?' Maybe because she's sung those in the past, but to me, she was always a Glinda. We didn't know each other well enough to be like, 'Alright, let's clear up the telephone game here. We are here for Glinda. Right?'"

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They both got the hint relatively quickly (Grande did come in wearing pink and carrying a pink water bottle, according to her tale of the audition) — and in every subsequent audition, Grande only read and sang pieces for the role of Glinda. Thank goodness!

Wicked, which also famously starred Idina Menzel, premiered on Broadway in 2003. Based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel of the same name and with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, the Wizard of Oz prequel musical traces the two witches' paths from students at Shiz University to Elphaba becoming the Wicked Witch of the West. The show went on to win three of its 10 Tony Award nominations in 2004.

Grande has already been earning rave reviews and Oscar buzz for her work in the film. The story has been split into two parts, with the first film set to hit theaters on Nov. 22.