Ariana Grande made it her mission to ensure that the Wicked movie would be as close to the stage musical as possible.
The singer already made headlines for "manifesting" the role of Glinda early on in her acting career, but has recently revealed she fought to include a famous line from the musical.
In a chat on the Sentimental Men podcast, Grande explained that she was "floored" after finishing reading the script because a popular one-liner had been replaced.
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"The wizard will see you now" in 'One Short Day' was written as "Who rang that bell?". Although the latter appears in the 1939 movie and is pronounced by the Gatekeeper, it wouldn't have been as iconic as the Wicked line in the musical adaption.
"I was sick to my stomach," Grande said, adding that she immediately texted director Jon M Chu with a quietly ominous message.
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"'Please, call me'. He was like, 'Are you ok?' I said, 'I don't think I am. We need to talk,'" she recalled.
"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?'"
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Grande then reached out to co-star Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba and was possibly just as shocked at the line omission as she was.
"I called Cynthia. I was like, 'Cynthia, did you finish the script?' She was like, 'I'm almost done, babe'. I was like, 'Did you see it? - 'The f**king Wizard will see you now' is missing.' She was like, 'What are you talking about?' I was like, 'Look, it's not there.'"
The two witches joined forces to "bombard" Chu until he gave in.
"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,'" she said.
Wicked is out now. Wicked: Part 2 is released in cinemas on November 21, 2025.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.
Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).
