Wicked star Cynthia Erivo called out an edit of the film’s poster, featuring Ariana Grande, that imitated the musical’s original poster in which Elphaba’s face is hidden in shadow.
Cynthia Erivo is not holding back.
The Wicked star clapped back on social media after the poster for the upcoming movie musical—in which Cynthia stars as Elphaba alongside Ariana Grande’s Glinda—was edited by a fan account to imitate the original musical poster in which Elphaba’s face is shadowed by her hat, save for her mouth.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” Cynthia wrote on her Oct. 16 Instagram Story, above the doctored poster, comparing it to inappropriate questions that have been sent her way regarding her green skin in the film. “None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
She continued, “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 Tony winner also took a moment to differentiate between the film and the musical.
“Our poster is an homage not an imitation,” she explained, before adding, “to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
Cynthia followed up her Story with a slide featuring the movie’s poster. While similar to the original Broadway version in that Glinda is whispering into Elphaba’s ear, the film’s poster is instead a photograph of Ariana and Cynthia, the latter of whom, indeed, is looking directly into the camera.
“Let me put this right here,” Cynthia wrote above the image, alongside two green hearts. “To remind you and cleanse your palette.”
In her post, the 37-year-old also likened the edited poster to an AI-generated image of her and Ariana fighting. But while the original musical was plagued by rumors of a rivalry between stars Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, Ariana and Cynthia have been clear that they would not be pitted against each other in a similar way.
As Ariana told Vanity Fair in an interview published in September, “We communicated like the fucking champions of communication of the world. I’m so grateful for it because we kind of looked at this and we said, ‘Oh, that’s not an option. That’s not going to happen to us.’”
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To which Cynthia agreed, noting the ways in which they made sure to support the other throughout the filming process.
“We needed real connection,” Cynthia explained. “And we needed to lead this with love—even in the moments that are supposed to be fraught with tension within the piece.”
She continued of Ariana, “There are days when she’s gonna need space, and there are days when I’m gonna need space. But because we love each other very dearly, it’s okay.”
In fact, the two have become so close, the “7 Rings” singer was almost moved to tears in describing their connection.
“I think we’ve done a really beautiful job of…oh my God, sorry,” Ariana explained. “We both really took the time to get to know the other person and where we’ve been. What our little wounds are. What our little things are.”
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