Cynthia Erivo took a subtle jab at the actresses who auditioned for the role of Glinda in the upcoming 'Wicked' movie, expressing her relief that Ariana Grande was ultimately cast. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Erivo, 37, and Grande, 31, discussed the casting process. When asked how they felt upon learning the other had been chosen, Erivo replied, 'Absolutely no surprise whatsoever.'

'I said, “Thank God,”' Grande recounted. Erivo then made a veiled comment about the other women considered for the role of Glinda in the film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical. 'Thank goodness, because it was not the two ladies that I was auditioning with,' Erivo said, implying that the other actresses who tried out for the role of Oz's famous Good Witch were not up to par. Grande was visibly stunned by the remark, exclaiming, 'Oh my God!'

'Thank Goodness' is also the title of a song in 'Wicked.' Besides Grande, actresses Amanda Seyfried, Dove Cameron, Reneé Rapp, and Taylor Louderman also reportedly auditioned for the role of Glinda.

Erivo went on to reveal that she didn't initially think she would be considered for the role of Elphaba. 'Historically, Black women have never really been seen for the role,' she said. 'If they have, they haven’t gotten the role, and if they do, they usually are the alternate or first cover. There's only one woman I know on record that has done it on the West End [in London]. So I just didn’t think they were looking for me.'

Erivo added that while she doesn't know why so few Black women have been considered for the role since the show's debut in 2004, she speculated, 'Maybe it’s a symptom of the time when it was made.'

The Broadway veteran has been making headlines while promoting 'Wicked,' which is set to hit theaters on November 22. After a fan-edited version of the movie's poster, which obscured Erivo's eyes, went viral, the actress took to her Instagram story to express her outrage. 'This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting,' she wrote on October 16. 'None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us. The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real-life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.'

The fan-edited poster was intended to make the promotional art more faithful to the Broadway poster's design, after many on social media criticized the official poster. However, in Erivo's view, creating an 'imitation' of the original poster that would 'hide my eyes' would consequently 'erase me.' 'Our poster is an homage not an imitation,' she wrote on her Instagram story, adding, 'to edit my face & hide my eyes is to erase me. That is just deeply hurtful.'

The actress also shared the movie's official poster in a separate post on her Instagram story, writing, 'Let me put this right here, to remind you and to cleanse your palette.' Later that month, Erivo admitted that she 'probably should have called' her friends rather than venting on social media. 'I’m passionate about it and I know the fans are passionate about it and I think for me it was just like a human moment of wanting to protect little Elphaba, and it was like a human moment,' she told Entertainment Tonight at the 2024 CFDA Fashion Awards on October 28. 'I probably should have called my friends, but it’s fine.'

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