A Wicked tearful talk with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo

"Excuse me," Ariana Grande said, flagging down an imaginary waiter. "May we have one million tissues, please?"

- Kyle Buchanan

It was midway through the fittingly witchy month of October, and the American actress-singer and Cynthia Erivo had convened at Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles to discuss their new film Wicked, adapted from the long-running Broadway musical.

With emotions riding high before its Nov 21 release, both women teared up frequently while talking about what the movie means to them.

On set, things had been no less emotional. "The tears would fall every single time," British actress-singer Erivo, 37, said as she recounted shooting a fraught dance sequence with her co-star. "I didn't have to try for them, they were always there."

"And I'd catch them," Grande, 31, added.

Wicked functions as a revisionist prequel to The Wizard Of Oz, with Chinese-American director Ion M. Chu's film following Erivo's green-skinned Elphaba long before she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.

As a young woman at Shiz University, Elphaba is forced to bunk with Grande's Glinda, a rival-turned-friend who plots to make over her outcast roommate during the fizzy musical number Popular.

But as Elphaba learns the dark secrets that undergird Oz's Emerald City, the disillusioned young witch steps into her own power and belts Defying Gravity, the showstopper that, onstage, is meant to bring down the curtain on the first act.

On screen, the song serves as the climax of the 21/2-hour movie. The rest of the story is saved for Wicked Part Two, which was shot in tandem with the first film and is slated for release in November 2025.