Cynthia Erivo Explains Reaction to Fan Edits of ‘Wicked’ Poster: ‘A Human Moment of Wanting to Protect Little Elphaba’
Now that she’s had a few weeks to think it over, Cynthia Erivo says she kind of wishes she’d reached out to a few friends before posting her heated reaction to some viral fan edits of the poster for Wicked. The singer/actress made it very clear earlier this month that she was not cool with the way fans tried to alter the poster for the movie musical co-starring Ariana Grande to make it look more like the original promo shot for the 2003 Broadway musical.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” said Erivo at the time of the edits that covered her eyes and half her face to make the poster look more like the Broadway original. According to People, Erivo addressed her heated reaction on the red carpet at Monday night’s 2024 CFDA Fashion Awards, where she described why she’s “really protective” of her take on the witch Elphaba.
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“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 the magazine. “I probably should have called my friends, but it’s fine.”
The images that set Erivo off were attempts by fans to re-imagine the poster for the Broadway musical, which was an illustration of Elpheba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda (the Good Witch played by Grande in the film) in which Elpheba’s eyes and face were partially obscured. “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,” Erivo wrote on Oct. 16. “…Because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”
“Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me,” Erivo continued in her original post. “And that is just deeply hurtful.”
The first part of the upcoming two-part take on Wicked will hit theaters on Nov. 22, with Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Bowen Yang and Ethan Slater rounding out the cast.
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