Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s wild audition tapes prove they were born to be in Wicked

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo could not have been more iconic in the Wicked movie, and both proved themselves as musical theatre legends – especially since Ariana has been a pop princess for the last decade. They were pitch-perfect in the Wicked movie, but people have been wowed by how far Cynthia and Ariana have come from their audition tapes back in 2021.

Ariana Grande’s audition

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I NEED TO SEE THE FULL THING #fyp #arianagrande #foryou #wicked

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Ariana Grande had to audition five times for Glinda, and also came in with no makeup to shed the image of her pop star past. She was PREPARED and it was evident she’d been waiting for this opportunity her entire life – she has sung enough Wicked songs in her past already!

“I stalked [producer] Marc Platt for 10 years, wondering, when would an audition be possible? As I got wind that it was coming closer and closer, I went to voice lessons and acting lessons every day. I was trying to get ready because it’s so different to what I usually sing. I remember by the end of my final test, my eyelashes were nowhere where they should be,” she said to Peacock TV.

Cynthia Erivo’s audition

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💚🩷Cynthia auditioning for Elphaba💚🩷@arianagrande @Cynthia Erivo @Universal Pictures @Wicked Movie #shizuniversity #fyp #Love #foryou #arianagrande #cynthiaerivo #jonathanbailey #spoiler #VIRAL #wicked #worldpremiere #Marissabode #Jeffgoldum #Ethanslater #wickedmovie #fyp #spoilers #spoileralert

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It’s no surprise that Cynthia’s audition for Elphaba took three hours. This leaked clip from her audition shows her absolutely killing the iconic Defying Gravity battle cry.

“The audition for me was three hours of me singing and acting with two other actresses. It was a pretty emotional day. I guess I threw everything into that audition,” Cynthia said to Peacock in a voiceover of her singing with an actual broom.

The director originally wanted ‘no-namers’ for Wicked

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Director Jon M Chu originally told GamesRadar he wanted “no-namers” to play the roles of Glinda and Elphaba because Wicked was “a big enough property on its own,” but then Cynthia and Ariana won him over in their incredible Wicked audition tapes.

“But then we got calls from all these great actresses who wanted to audition and we saw everybody, and they were all really great. Anyone could have done this role,” he added, before admitting: “Except there were two people who were meant to do this role, for this particular movie at this particular time,” Jon said.

He continued: “What we found out when we were auditioning everyone, was that the songs are so important in this movie, and so emotionally important to this movie, that the person who’s doing it has to get into song and out of song so easily that it’s like butter, like you don’t even notice it. That means having good chops in their skill set.”

“These songs are very difficult, the task is very hard. It will probably require professionals. Somebody who has crashed and burned at some point to have learned the lessons,” he said, and explained he would have rather scrapped the whole movie than cast the wrong Glinda and Elphaba.

Jon revealed Cynthia wasn’t brought into the audition room until much later in the audition process. Her renditions of The Wizard and I and Defying Gravity completely changed his tune. He also said Ariana was brought back multiple times and eventually landed the role thanks to her commitment and total understanding of the character. How very Glinda of her!