Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are revealing which scenes cut from “Wicked” left them most heartbroken to see deleted from the Jon M. Chu-directed movie.
Several of the scenes are featured in recently released bonus content included in streaming versions of the movie.
“I love them all. They all have a cozy spot in my heart,” Grande told me on the red carpet at the Palm Springs International Film Awards Friday night. “I love the train station scene with Boq (Ethan Slater) and Elphaba (Erivo). That’s one of my favorite lines. The first time I read the script that line Boq says, ‘Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought we were being honest,’ me and my acting coach Nancy Banks, we put so many hearts around because we were like, ‘That’s the best line in the whole movie.’ I think that scene has a lot of magnificent work in it, so I miss that.”
Then, Grande teased that there are plenty of deleted scenes that have not been released…yet. “I’m talking to Jon,” she said.
Erivo was also sad to see the Elphaba and Boq train scene go. “I love that scene so much, so I was gutted when it was not there,” she said. “And the scene in the forest (with Jonathan Bailey’s Fiyero) right before I go and put the lion down… I was like, ‘Why?’ That I missed.”
Another of Erivo’s favorite scenes was the exchange at the train station when Glinda and Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) comes stand up for Elphaba when her father Governor Thropp puts her down.
“I loved that moment because it felt like people were holding her up,” Erivo explained. “Those are the three scenes that I hate that they’re gone, but they’re there now, so you can see them.”
While Chu admitted that “every” deleted scene was “difficult” to leave on the cutting room floor, one scene was particularly tough to lose.
“The promise was a hard one because Ari and Cynthia are doing such great work,” he said. “But what I found is it takes a little bit of the tension away from the next scene (when Elphaba is invited to the Emerald City.”
Chu explained: “If you know there’s a promise and Elphaba is a woman of her word, then you know she’s going to invite [Glinda]. But if you don’t know where they are at and if you don’t know that Glinda has a sense Fiyero and her having a little thing, it makes her smarter and a little bit of a surprise. So it was very difficult. And at that point, our movie is at two hours – let’s get to the Emerald City and get to the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).”
