Entertainment Ariana Grande Cynthia Erivo Film Wicked

This phrase was originally banned from Wicked: For Good, but one scene changed everything

Now it's said in the film on one special occasion

Ellissa Bain
1st December 2025, 16:14
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The Wicked director has revealed he totally banned one phrase from being used in the entire script, until one For Good scene changed everything.

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jon M. Chu explained that the three words “I love you” were completely forbidden at first.

“Nobody says ‘love’ in Oz. That was a rule that we came into this movie with,” he said. However, that all changed during a rehearsal for the For Good scene at the end of the film.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo came up with the idea for the emotional scene where they were separated by a door, which has become a key moment in the film.

“I just realized, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the moment’,” Chu said. “[Singing] For Good is them being there for each other. But the closet is when they can act how they really feel. That door closes, it’s like that moment that you say goodbye to someone, and you’re home alone, and the silence, and you can now let it all out.”

Credit: Universal Pictures

At that point, he knew it was right for the witches to declare their love for each other. The director explained: “They can say I love you because they’ve earned the right to say I love you.”

In an interview with Today, Cynthia revealed that they improvised the whole scene, saying: “The moment that I tell her I love her at the door, and she says it back, that was not in the script. That was something that we — that happened.

“All of that was sort of what she and I found in the room. I think both of us were just figuring out how each of our characters would actually say goodbye. Even through the song, there wasn’t much direction. He [Chu] just let us sing to one another. Tell each other the truth.”

The director’s opinion on using the words “I love you” also changed after the first Wicked film came out, because he released how much people wanted the two witches to grow.

“We realised the audience is in and they want the characters to grow. I knew I could fight off any note about catching anybody up about any plot. It’s not about the plot, ‘It’s about the girls, stupid,’ is what was repeated over and over,” he said.

The film definitely wouldn’t have been the same without that iconic declaration of love.

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Featured image by: Universal Pictures