People are pretty divided over Elphaba and Fiyero’s romance scene in Wicked: For Good. While some cinemagoers are obsessing over Elphaba’s sex cardigan, others are unimpressed that this moment wasn’t as spicy as it is in the musical. In the stage show, Elphaba and Fiyero usually kiss numerous times. Then they kneel down and sing As Long As You’re Mine while holding (and excessively touching) each other. In the film, Elphaba and Glinda wander about the woods for most of the song. Like, she sings the line “kiss me too fiercely” while nowhere near Fiyero.
Thankfully, the director Jon M Chu has explained the actual reason why Elphaba and Fiyero’s romance scene isn’t as spicy in the Wicked: For Good film as it is in the musical.
When Jon M Chu was planning out the As Long As You’re Mine scene, he worried that Wicked: For Good wasn’t “the type of movie where you just sit there and stare at each other and sing.” He explained to Entertainment Weekly: “I was like, ‘There’s nothing happening. Passion can only happen… We need a scene where they go out on a date or something. How do they know each other?’”
The scene that will spawn 1,000 TikTok edits to mediocre Taylor Swift songs
(Credit: Universal Pictures)
Apparently, he and Jonathan Bailey (the actor who slays as Fiyero) had some DMCs about what Fiyero finds so beautiful about Elphaba. They decided Fiyero would “look at her at nest and see how beautiful of a place she made”, and really appreciate that about her. Chu explained: “That’s something Cynthia brought to this character that none of us were thinking: dignity. She’s like, ‘I would have a home, I would make it smell nice. I would put my hair up.’”
Jon M Chu continued: “And what if we got to the point where then he looked at her and looked at even the propaganda that paints her as ugly and evil, and can’t believe that she still loves and knows herself? He cannot do that. It’s not about him being in love with her, it’s about him respecting her at a level that he cannot be alive in the way she’s alive.”
She does slay the interior design
(Credit: Universal Pictures)
He reckons that when Elphaba and Fiyero finally do kneel down an hold each other like in the musical, the moment has more impact, because there has been more build-up . “To me, that is earning the moment. That makes it more intimate and sensual, not sexual. And I think that’s when you fall for their love. That to me is more sexy than anything else.”
By the way, he also revealed that Jonathan Bailey also improvised the moment when Fiyero takes off Elphaba’s cloak. “He was like, ‘I want to take off her cape so she can feel what it feels like to let go.’ And this moment was way longer than what they did in the film. I mean, it was f***king 20 minutes. They just stared at each other.” Love that.
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Featured images via Universal Pictures
