Warning: This story contains spoilers for Wicked: For Good.
One of the most emotional moments in “Wicked: For Good” happened not only between Elphaba and Glinda, but also between Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
The highly anticipated sequel to Wicked: For Good, released in 2024, takes place one year after the events of the first film. Erivo's Elphaba capitalized on her reputation as the “Wicked Witch,” while her best friend Glinda, played by Grande, took on the mantle of the “Good Witch,” serving as a figurehead to lift the Osians' spirits.
Unlike the first film, Elphaba and Glinda spend most of the film apart. They reunite briefly before Glinda and Fiyero's wedding, and then again at the very end when Glinda goes to warn Elphaba about the approaching march of the witch hunters.
It is during the final scene that Erivo and Grande perform the film's theme song, “For Good.” Director Jon M. Chu says this scene was the one he was most nervous about.
“It's such an iconic song. We've seen so many covers, so many people doing these songs. It's the end of a two-film series. How do you make it big? Or feel like it deserves to be the last song in the movie? But at the end of the day, these two women have earned the right to drive during this,” he told TODAY.com.
Erivo says he and Grande actually did just that, starting to create their own song during rehearsals.
“We were kind of brainstorming what it could be, and then right after the song where it ended, we just kept going and (Chu) just didn't stop us,” she told TODAY.com.
In the film, “For Good” turns into a hurried and heartbreaking goodbye between best friends as the witch hunters, led by the Tin Woodman, descend on Elphaba's hideout.
After the song, Elphaba tells Glinda it's time for her to go, and she replies, “What's going on?”
“It wasn’t in the script,” Erivo says. “I said, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine’—that’s not according to the script.”
Elphaba hurries Glinda and finds a closet in which she can hide. Before it closes, they each say, “I love you.” This was also the result of improvisation by Erivo and Grande.
“That moment when I tell her I love her at the door and she says it back, that wasn't in the script. It was something that we…it happened,” she says.
“It was all something like what she and I found in the room,” Erivo adds.
Chu specifically “just let us find it,” she says. “We learned how to say goodbye.” Goodbye not only How their characters, but To their characters.
“I think we were both just figuring out how each of our characters would actually say goodbye,” she says. “Even the song didn’t have a particular direction. He just let us sing to each other. Tell each other the truth.”
