After over a year of production, the Wicked movies just wrapped filming in England and part one of two of the musical adaptation is set to drop on the 2024 movie schedule at the end of the year. Along with Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum and many other big names being part of the Wicked cast, the film will see director Jon M. Chu reuniting with his Crazy Rich Asians star Michelle Yeoh. As the Oscar winner recently admitted, she needed some convincing to play the role, and that’s where Ariana Grande came in.
As Yeoh recently shared on The Tonight Show, she was eager to work with Chu again after starring in the 2018 hit rom-com, but she had some reservations about the role. In her words:
I read the script. I call him, 'Jon [Chu], you realize she sings, right?' And he goes, 'Uh huh.' I don't sing! He's like, 'Eh, don't worry.' Then, the next day, I get this video, and I look at it, and it's like, 'Hi, Michelle. I just have two people here who really want to talk to you and tell you why you should be here.' And it was Ariana and Cynthia. … ‘Imperative’ was the royal word.
Michelle Yeoh was cast as Madame Morrible back in 2022, but before she signed the dotted line she was concerned about her lack of singing experience. In the smash Broadway hit Wicked is based on, Madame Morrible is the headmistress of a school where Glinda and Elphaba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) meet and become friends prior to becoming enemies. Morrible lends her vocals to two songs in the musical, “The Wizard And I” and “Thank Goodness.”
But as Yeoh shared, when Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo (who play the Good Witch and Wicked Witch in the movies) recorded a video especially for her to convince her why it was “imperative” for her to be on the film, it sounded like she said no more, and decided to take the leap. When describing her experience working with the two stars, she said this:
Cynthia and Ariana are like angels. When you walk on [set] and you hear them sing, it’s like you’ve gone to heaven.
When asked whether being next to two incredible vocalists in Wicked added “pressure” to Yeoh, she said “hell no,” explaining that there was no way she was going to “outdo” them in that sense. Check out the YouTube video where Yeoh shared with Jimmy Fallon her Wicked experience along with details on recently becoming a grandma and starring in Netflix’s The Brothers’ Sun:
Yeoh’s recent interview about Wicked comes as the entire cast wrapped filming this week. On Friday, Erivo shared a BTS photo of herself on a broom in celebration of wrapping the films and her co-stars Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande celebrated with their own posts of their characters. Wicked: Part 1 heads to theaters on November 27, and that's when we'll get to see this whole cast, including Michelle Yeoh, singing and dancing through life.
