The stars of the hit movie “Wicked” have finally addressed their strangest interview moment from a pre-release press tour loaded with awkward viral clips.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande raised the internet’s collective eyebrows with their response to a bizarre statement by Out magazine reporter Tracy Gilchrist last month, who told the duo she had seen posts online that people were “holding space” with one of the blockbuster’s big musical numbers.
Erivo and Grande appeared to have a strong emotional reaction to the scribe’s puzzling turn of phrase, and a clip of the encounter garnered tens of millions of views, prompting some viewers to ask if they were having a “fever dream.”
In a new interview in Variety, the actresses took different approaches to explaining their responses.
Erivo she said reacted so strongly because she didn’t know people were “holding space” with her character’s breakout song and “really feeling power in that,” but chalked it up to the fact that she “hasn’t been looking” for documented instances.
“I mean, it’s been happening on some platforms. I mean, I guess. I had no idea that this thing was going on,” she said..
Grande, for her part, readily admitted she was baffled by Gilchrist’s comment.
“So I didn’t know what any part of it meant,” the Grammy winner said bluntly, drawing laughs from the Variety interviewer before explaining how she was responding in kind to her co-star’s emotional response.
“I didn’t understand the first sentence. And then I definitely didn’t understand what was happening — how you [Erivo] responded. I was like, ‘Oh, what did she say? What did you hear?’ And I just wanted to be there ’cause I knew something big was happening, and I didn’t know how to be there,” Grande continued.
Erivo conceded “After a while I didn’t know how to be there.”
Grande recalled how she felt in the midst of the interview.
“I remember asking myself ‘am I OK? Did I not hear something?’”
The original video also shows Grande grabbing her co-star’s finger and tapping on it, which was apparently to offer the Tony-winner some emotional support.
“I was like, ‘Cause she looks like she’s about to cry again, and I’m gonna grab this ’cause I think you might need something. And I don’t know what the tapping was about, but that happened.”
Erivo said she was also puzzled by Gilchrist’s reference to her being in “queer media” during the viral exchange.
“I honestly didn’t know what that meant. And, am I also in queer media maybe? Work. Let’s both be there,” she said.
Grande, 31, said she was “glad” and “relieved” that the world had the same experience as she did with the widely shared moment.
Gilchrist, who has also been ruthlessly mocked by the internet for creating the now-viral phrase, told Variety on Monday that the interview was conducted a day and a half after the Nov. 5 presidential election, and that she went into the sit-down with “sincere” intentions.
“I was very inspired by Tony Morrison, [senior communications director] from GLAAD,” she told the ouetlet.
“He posted the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ before I did my interview. It was a great explainer. ‘Holding space’ is being physically, emotionally and mentally present with someone or something. For me, it means being in the moment, not being distracted and feeling something on a cellular level.”
The film’s stars have been widely mocked online for their strange and at times seemingly emotionally codependent antics throughout the press tour, during which the actresses made strange outbursts and frequently cried.
Despite the cringey press tour, “Wicked” has been a runaway success, grossing over $300 million at the box office so far.
