Jon M. Chu initially wanted to make two "no-namers" popular in Wicked
"It's a big enough property on its own," the director said of his initial casting approach.
Photo: Universal Pictures
The practice of casting known celebrities instead of veteran stage-actors who may not have earned the recognition they deserve is so common in musical theater that it has its own name: stunt casting. The general ethos around stunt casting in Broadway circles is usually pretty negative. It tends to mean a show is circling the drain and can’t sell tickets on its own, and it takes potential roles away from the people who’ve dreamed of them for years.
Despite the fact that his Wicked characters are being played by some of the biggest names in Hollywood, director Jon M. Chu initially subscribed to this mindset as well. “I wanted to have a very clear slate coming into Wicked,” he told SFX Magazine in a recent interview. “It’s a big enough property on its own, so we can discover two people. I was like, ‘We’re gonna find no-namers.'” It’s not a crazy idea. While it feels like films increasingly need a big star to sell their story, movie-musicals have been casting unknowns for years. More recently, Nikki Blonsky earned her first screen acting credit ever in Hairspray, and ditto for Rachel Zegler—now a major, major star—in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. Just because we don’t know someone’s name now, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t in the future.
Still, something obviously shifted along the way. “We got calls from all these great actresses who wanted to audition and we saw everybody, and they were all really great. Anyone could have done this role, except there were two people who were meant to do this role, for this particular movie at this particular time,” Chu continued. Those two people are Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo (not to mention smaller parts that went to equally recognizable names like Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Jonathan Bailey, and more), whom Chu has praised time and time again for their work in this film. Grande “will blow your mind and break your hearts,” he told the Associated Press last month, while Erivo reminds him “why I fell in love with movies, when you get to see someone so raw.”
To her credit, Grande also understands that her casting may have upset some die-hard fans. “Going off of ‘Side to Side,’ I probably would’ve said… ‘Why the fuck? Kill me. I’ve waited 20 years for this’… So, you know, I get it,” she said on the Sentimental Men podcast, putting herself—as dedicated a fan as anyone else—in their ruby slippers (via Deadline). But, she continued, “This is something I loved so much about auditioning for Wicked… It has to be earned… It’s fun to kind of have the challenge of reframing people’s perception and doing the work to earn your way back into the other spaces.”