Wicked‘s Director Says Nailing ‘Defying Gravity’ Was ‘Hell on Earth’

In each of Wicked, one infinitesimal rises supra each the rest. It’s the finale of Act One erstwhile the would-be Wicked Witch Elphaba yet embraces her powers and decides to fly, changing not conscionable her life, but the lives of everyone successful Oz. And she does it by singing the opus “Defying Gravity.”

Much similar the signifier show, director Jon M. Chu uses “Defying Gravity” arsenic the finale to his Part One of Wicked, present successful theaters.. Unlike the signifier amusement though, audiences won’t spot Part Two successful 20 minutes. It’ll beryllium a year. So Chu had to beryllium other cautious with the opus truthful that it was everything fans of the amusement had been waiting years to see, carried the aforesaid emotions for radical watching the movie for the archetypal time, but besides wrapped up the communicative successful a mode to permission audiences satisfied for a year. “It was hellhole connected Earth,” Chu told io9 astir uncovering that balance.

Bringing “Defying Gravity” to the surface is something  Chu was reasoning astir agelong earlier helium signed connected to nonstop the Wicked movie. Chu saw the amusement successful aboriginal 2003, months earlier it came to Broadway, and instantly began imagining what it would beryllium similar arsenic a movie. And, successful fact, helium keyed into 1 infinitesimal successful particular. You guessed it.

Chu with his stars – Universal

“‘Defying Gravity,'” Chu told io9 erstwhile asked what helium wanted to accommodate the most. “That’s the casual 1 to spell to. But it’s mode much hard than I thought. Because the powerfulness of those words, the brilliance of [songwriter] Steven Schwartz is successful the specificity of those lyrics. You person to beryllium close determination with her and yet you privation the scope of the formation and you privation to acquisition it. So picking wherever we were large and wherever we were with her, that was torture actually. I had galore versions of however to bash that. But erstwhile we leaned into wherever we needed to beryllium emotionally with her, that’s wherever it truly took flight, nary pun intended.”

Chu past dove a spot deeper into the specifics of the scene. Where helium chose to expand, wherever helium chose to adhd things not from the musical, and more. Here’s what helium said erstwhile asked astir surviving up to the hype of the opus but besides making definite it acceptable successful this movie.

“That was scary,” Chu said. “When you divided the movie into two, you person to person that archetypal movie consciousness similar a implicit movie. So there’s a batch of work, [a batch of] plumbing that had to beryllium done beforehand. ‘The Wizard and I,’ however that had to beryllium the antithesis to [‘Defying Gravity’]. You spell from the lowest ground, up to the highest ground, onto that edge, and she’s not rather acceptable to beryllium with the bluebirds that alert implicit the rainbow… but she’s going to.”

“And however bash you spot her arsenic a kid truthful you tin basal for her successful each of these moments? And, successful ‘Defying Gravity’ specifically, this is simply a breakup of these 2 radical we autumn successful emotion with. Who had specified a infinitesimal astatine the OzDust. And truthful the infinitesimal she says, ‘Come with me, are you coming?’ The unsaid happening is ‘I’m not coming. I privation what you privation but I recovered my destiny.’ To me, those were truthful powerful, and those girls understood it truthful intrinsically due to the fact that [Ariana Grande] was surviving Galinda, [Cynthia Erivo] was surviving Elphaba. They are truthful antithetic from each other, but they stock this beauteous humanity together. And truthful that was truly hard.”

Chu and his formed – Universal

“The infinitesimal that she’s expected to conscionable say, ‘It’s me,’ and she flies up, you’re waiting for that. But I emotion the information that she didn’t gain it, actually. We needed her to consciousness that her intent was right, not conscionable for anger, not due to the fact that she’s been dismayed, but why? So her falling retired the model and seeing her younger self, to me, was the existent crushed she flew. She had to prevention herself for that small miss successful herself. And truthful I loved that. And those were each precise hard versions. We did versions without it. We did versions with it. But successful the instauration of it, I knew that it had to bash truthful overmuch much than conscionable beryllium an extremity song. It had to archer the extremity of the communicative and reason what the different characters were and springiness america what it felt similar to ticker ‘Defying Gravity’ connected stage. So each those things factored into that. It was hellhole connected Earth.”

Adding to those struggles was the information that accumulation had held filming of “Defying Gravity” until aboriginal successful the sprout and then, owed to the writer’s and actor’s strikes, had to postpone it. It wasn’t until aft the agelong interruption that everyone came backmost to bash the movie’s biggest number.

“We had to travel backmost to bash ‘Defying Gravity’ which was emotionally hard for Cynthia and Ari,” Chu said. [Cynthia] had trained a twelvemonth to bash those stunts. And to cognize wherever to enactment her voice. And abruptly for six months she’s not doing it and she has to travel back. For us, it really truly helped successful the extremity due to the fact that we got to stitchery our vigor again. We had been shooting for 160 days astatine that point. And I deliberation she dropped successful truthful rapidly and easily. And Ari besides dropped successful truly easily. They were these characters and it was not arsenic hard arsenic I thought it would be.”

The effect speaks for itself. The opus gives the movie a coagulated ending with Elphaba embracing her powers and Galinda choosing her path; it besides incorporates footage of everyone other and has each the excitement to extremity things connected a precocious note. The communicative volition past proceed adjacent twelvemonth and, portion it’s not rather “Defying Gravity,” Part Two does person a likewise epic song: “For Good.”

Wicked Part One is present successful theaters.

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