Wicked’s Ariana Grande is making sure to stay true to the theatre kids as she fought to keep an iconic line from the musical.
During an exclusive interview on the Sentimental Men podcast, the Side to Side hitmaker, who portrays the role of Glinda in the musical film, opened up about including a famous line from the original.
The singer said, “The wizard will see you now” in One Short Day was replaced with “Who rang that bell?”
Citing a reference from the musical, Grande further went on to add, “I was sick to my stomach.”
She recalled texting director Jon M. Chu an urgent message after a particular incident, “‘Please, call me’. He was like, ‘Are you ok?’ I said, ‘I don’t think I am. We need to talk.
“He calls me and I was like, ‘We can’t do that. It has to be ‘The Wizard will see you now’. Are you crazy?'”
The 31-year-old said that since she couldn’t contain the damage done to her favorite musical, she turned to her co-star Cynthia Erivo for help.
To her surprise, the 37-year-old was onboard with the decision to ‘bombard’ Chu until he gave in to the pressure.
She explained, “Then we call Jon together to address this massive problem. The first thing on our task list, we literally bombarded him. I add her into the chat, we both were like ‘We have to handle this. It can’t be that.”
For the unversed, Wicked: Part 2 is slated to release in cinemas on November 21, 2025.