November 17, 2025
SINGAPORE – British actress-singer Cynthia Erivo did not mince her words when asked about some of the challenges she and her Wicked: For Good castmates had experienced during the international promotional tour for the fantasy musical movie sequel.
“We have come through some s***,” she said during a Screen Actors Guild event over the weekend. “I mean, f*** even this last week, let’s be honest.”
According to American trade magazine Variety, Erivo made the comments while speaking to the audience at the Saban Media Centre Wolf Theatre in Los Angeles.
The 38-year-old was likely referring to the incident on Nov 13, in which a man jumped a barricade and charged at her co-star Ariana Grande at the film’s yellow carpet premiere held at Universal Studios Singapore in Resorts World Sentosa.
In multiple videos of the incident, which has gone viral, he can be seen roughly putting his arm around Grande, 32, in a tight hug.
The American actress and pop star recoiled in shock, and Erivo instinctively forced herself between Grande and the intruder, while security guards quickly apprehended the man. Erivo and Malaysian co-star Michelle Yeoh comforted Grande before they composed themselves and continued walking down the carpet.
Johnson Wen, a 26-year-old Australian, was charged on Nov 14 with being a public nuisance.
The promotional tour also travelled to Sao Paulo, Paris and London, and will end in New York City on Nov 17.
Grande and Erivo reprise their roles as Glinda The Good and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West respectively in the follow-up film to Wicked (2024), which opens in Singapore cinemas on Nov 20.
They discussed during the Q&A session in Los Angeles how their roles in the film have essentially changed them as artistes and individuals, according to the Variety report.
Erivo said she found safety in the music from Wicked before even watching the stage production when she was 20 years old in drama school.
“I saw it when I was 25 and took myself for a single date for my birthday, and that place that made me feel safe, I ended up being in.”
The actress said she was forced by the role to face the personal fears and experiences she had previously avoided.
“I was too scared to look at what beauty is when seeing through the eyes of those who don’t think that you’re beautiful,” she added.
Grande said playing Glinda helped her to reconnect with her craft after feeling disconnected from it “for a little while”.
She added: “It really felt like safe again to fall in love with creating and like maybe I was being seen for the first time.”
The singer said the full complexity of Glinda’s character would be fully understood by viewers in Wicked: For Good.
“I feel really relieved that people finally will get to see and know and love Glinda the way that I had to play her.”