Cynthia Erivo Claims She Was 'Holding On By Threads' While Promoting Wicked

Cynthia Erivo is reflecting on the infamous press tour she and her Wicked co-star Ariana Grande took part in to promote the hit film.

Back in 2024, Wicked’s two lead stars went into full-blown promo mode to help plug the movie musical, which led to a string of viral moments and, indeed, a number of tearful interviews.

Reflecting on the last four years, Cynthia told Variety as part of a new interview: “We were holding on by threads, and we were really trying to take care of each other.”

The British performer noted that she and Ariana made a “really conscious decision” early on in the process of making Wicked to have one another’s backs, but during the promotion of the film, the sincerity of their friendship was called into question once or twice.

“It’s very interesting, watching what people’s perception is versus what the reality actually is,” she recalled of the period she and Ariana were being dissected on social media.

“[There were] lots of psychologists seated at home deciding who we were, what we were going through, what we were doing and why.”

“I think that people didn’t really believe that we were actually friends, but that’s also because people don’t know me very well,” Cynthia added, noting that she and Ariana still text one another most days, even with Wicked behind them.

She added: “ I think sometimes, if I’m honest, people thought I was being myself, even though I was green.”

Towards the end of the interview, Cynthia was also asked if she’d ever consider going back to play Elphaba in a third Wicked movie, admitting that she probably didn’t have enough distance from the first two to really offer an answer.

She did, however, claim that it would “take a lot” for her to return to Oz, and that the project would have to “make sense”.

Back in 2024, Cynthia defended the emotional interviews she and Ariana had given while promoting Wicked.

Pointing out that, at that point, the films had taken up “almost three years of our lives”, she told BuzzFeed UK: “We’re still processing everything – and this tour has been a wonderful opportunity to talk about the experience of making it, and the experiences we had together, and the experience of coming out of it.”

“So, yeah, we’ve definitely been emotional, because we’re still deeply connected to it. And I think we’ll always be connected to these roles, these women that we got to play, who I don’t think have completely left, or will ever leave, because they were such a large part of our lives.”

Read Cynthia Erivo’s full interview with Variety here.