15 Things We Learned About Wicked From Director Jon M. Chu’s Commentary

Fans can now peek behind the curtain of Wicked with director Jon M. Chu, thanks to the digital release of the Universal Pictures musical movie hit.

Wicked‘s home release includes several bonus features: deleted scenes, docu-style content, and a commentary track with stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo—as well as a solo commentary with Chu. All of the extras feature exciting tidbits about the magic that went into making the vision of a new Oz inspired by the Broadway musical.

Chu’s commentary in particular digs into the lore inspired by The Wizard of Oz and the time period in which L. Frank Baum wrote the original Oz stories, and Wicked‘s many homages to the history of cinema. Here’s what we learned from listening to him speak about the film all the way through.

The Wizard of Oz is an American fairytale

In the “Dancing Through Life” dance sequence, Chu masterfully references classic Hollywood musicals while also conveying his affection for Baum’s novel and its place in American history. “It’s interesting, Wizard of Oz is such an American fairy tale.” he shared, also nodding to the 1939 movie as well. “It was written at the time of American transition, leaving the Depression, going into war. It sort of deals with the American dream, and I love that we get to reinvestigate the American dream in Wicked through a new perspective. And so we try to take from images of Americana in terms of travel, from the puddle, to horseback, to boat, to a road, to a train, to flight, and how that changes our history and our trajectory.” Watch closely, and you’ll see there are connective threads from the film’s witch hat opening on the puddle to the moment Elphaba takes flight in the final act.

The Flying Monkeys are Universal Monsters

“You know when we think about the flying monkeys, we often compare them to one of the many characters in the monster universe of Universal,” Chu says early in the commentary. “And so portraying them in the most physical and touchable, real way was something that we really wanted to do.”

Later, alongside the final act, he describes the creature feature moment of their creation, “We get to do our classic Universal Monster moment, the creation of the flying monkeys. We want to take our time in this, that it was painful and that their hair was turning into feathers as well. It’s like Frankenstein waking up. Even the shadow shot is a nod to those kind of things [the] American tales that we get to reinvestigate. And I love that it’s part victory as well. You can hear the music actually gets victorious. So it’s like, whose perspective are we [watching] from? And even Elphaba here on this shot, we don’t know—is it amazing that she did thism or not? And then things start to fall apart.”

In the Heights almost had a connection to Wicked

The events of the film kick into action when Glinda is asked one very important question. A question that was almost asked by a frequent collaborator of Chu’s. “When that woman says, ‘Glinda, is it true you were her friend?’— I got many calls from Lin-Manuel Miranda, who might have publicly also tweeted it that he wanted to be that voice and that person, but I thought it would be too distracting,” he admitted. “So, sorry Lin.”

“The Wizard and I”

Elphaba’s “I want” motivation in Wicked is complicated. She doesn’t actively wish she was another color besides green, Chu explained—it’s just everyone’s telling her that she shouldn’t be green, and that sparks her self-doubt. “The Wizard and I” musical number, Chu says, is when she realizes “No, you know what? I’m good with being green.”

The kaleidoscope glass sequence added to that feeling. “I love that the light’s in there. And she can just dream of what it would be like if she wasn’t in her skin. Again, this will all come back later. When the wizard asks her, ‘Is that your heart’s desire? You don’t have to be green.’ And she actually sacrifices her own wishes or possible wishes for the goodness of the animals. And I think that shows a lot of the type of person she is and who we really want to get across. So this number is very important.”

Chu continues. “It’s the antithesis to ‘Defying Gravity,’ where she has the possibility of flight. She has the possibility of taking it off, but she’s not ready yet. We’ve established that she does have visions here, that there’s a celebration throughout Oz that has to do with her. She just doesn’t know the context. But we’ve actually already seen it. And whether the audience picks it up or not, I’m not sure. But we’ll get it by the second movie.”

Yes, that’s a novelty song homage in “What Is this Feeling?”

To Chu, Elphaba and Glinda rooming together and clashing represents the puzzle of Oz represented by the two of them: “Elphaba, she comes in and you see sharper edges. She’s the Z in Oz, and Glinda is the O. So these two things will collide visually.” The way he depicted this involves a fun homage. “I love this because it always reminded me of ‘Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,’ this famous number of campers writing to their parents at home. So I love the idea of being able to split screen here and play around with the form.”

Why isn’t that song called “Loathing”?

The dichotomy of the power between Elphaba and Glinda is clearly presented in this scene. While Elphaba is the one with the visible potential, Glinda’s power is her popularity, Chu explains. “Actually, it’s very powerful to know how to communicate and how to convince everybody of something. Her power will come later, but as fun as it is to think about loathing and roommates loathing, it actually has a big thematic theme for us. And I love the fact that even though Glinda can win every social situation, the one thing she wants to have magic and be accepted by Morrible is the thing that Elphaba has.”

The song, he continues, is “called ‘What is this Feeling?’ and people think it’s called Loathing’—but actually it’s not loathing at all that is happening between them. We always say, ‘We always resist the people who are going to change the rest of our life because no one wants to change. So, it’s not even necessarily loathing, it’s just this person is going to change the rest of my life.’ You don’t want that, so it’s funny to see that, because they will.”

Elphie and Fiyero’s forest meet-cute

Chu also teased a very important relationship in Wicked: For Good between Elphaba and Fiyero. As seen in the movie, the pair actually meets before Glinda meets Fiyero. “We don’t get into their full relationship with this movie, so again, these are just breadcrumbs that we’re leading the audience very slowly,” the director says. “Sometimes it’s hard, you know, what you want to plan to pay off later that doesn’t go into full fruition into this movie. But in a weird way, this movie is about possibilities and choices. And that by the end, Elphaba makes a big choice, and there are a lot of possibilities for where that choice can go. And movie two is more of the consequence of some of those.”

The Wicked Witch of the West’s hat

A relationship almost as important as the one between Galinda and Elphaba that’s set up in this film is the relationship Elphie makes with her black pointy hat. Chu talks about the moment Galinda considers gifting it to Elphaba as a joke enabled by Pfannee and ShenShen.

“I love this moment because it could be constricted in many different ways, but Glinda actually isn’t a bad person here. She is being pushed by Pfannee and ShenShen to give her the hat, and by seeing the book, the sorcery book, that Elphaba brings in, it sort of pushes her even more to give her the hat. It’s a very delicate moment because we don’t want Glinda to be mean, and she’s not. She’s just young and she’s being pressured.”

When her roommate gives her the hat, Elphaba’s probably aware of the joke—but there’s also something about it that speaks to her. “I love that Elphaba doesn’t have a big reaction to the hat of sort of like, ‘What the heck is that?’ Instead she’s actually drawn to the hat and that it actually has an interesting connection. That it isn’t just circular, that it has the edge to it. That these two will be bonded for all time as a symbol and as a partner in this journey that she’s about to go on. She doesn’t even know it yet. And when she tilts her head here as she looks at it, I love that moment because it felt like she and the hat were one.”

A sister’s pair of shiny shoes

One of the fun Easter eggs from the film is Nessarose’s shoes, a future iconic object in the realm of Oz lore. “If you look at the crystal shoes, it’s designed to look like two tornadoes, or a tornado on each heel. And it’s beautiful,” Chu points out. The shoes were made distinctive for this iteration of the story, which goes back to the original book’s crystal pair; the famed ruby slippers were created for the Judy Garland picture. “I don’t even know how it fits or if it’s even comfortable, because it doesn’t look very comfortable. I’ve never tried it on, but it’s beautiful,” he says of the intricate, unique design.

The Ozdust duet

In the Broadway musical, it’s a gag when Elphie dances like she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. But for the film, Chu wanted to play the scene a different way. “[It was] much more important to us in this story that we still felt the hurt. That even though she doesn’t know what to do, she’s just making space for herself—and even if making space for herself is humiliating and hard, that she just knows that she has to do it. Some people say it looks like she’s casting a spell or something, and maybe she is, over her own self and telling herself that she just has to be here And it’s defiant but not too defiant,” he says, praising Erivo’s interpretation of the moment. “Defiant like, ‘I’m here even if it feels like the worst thing in my life.’ Because if we gave her too much of a defiant moment like ‘I’m here and you have to deal with it and I’m better than you,’ it wouldn’t play as strong.”

Galinda/Glinda is changed for good

In the duet we also get another huge moment. “We see Glinda blossoming in this moment and [Ariana Grande] is doing an amazing job of playing this line because up to this point she’s basically played a comedic character with a little hints of Intelligence and sensitivity. But here she takes off the mask fully and you can see it in her eyes. I mean, this is not an easy scene by any means,” Chu shares about the moment Grande and Erivo make their connection through touch.

“In those two hands touching, which will be a symbol for the rest of the movie every time they touch, this is the heart of the movie. I knew when I saw this in rehearsal and started to weep uncontrollably after watching them do it [that] this is what the movie would be about—this relationship and coming to see each other at their bare bones. And then the two of them could be bonded for life to be against the world.” This public display of allyship, he explains, provides a space to see how they can to inspire a young generation of Ozians to witnesses the power of acceptance. It also “shows the unlimited possibilities of what the future of Oz could be—and yet they will be influenced by the propaganda of the wizard and Madame Morrible” later on in part two.

Ariana Grande made “Popular” her own

Since “bringing the emotion more to the Ozdust dance between the two of them” meant the friendship is forged more there, he didn’t want to lose its impact by continuing the seriousness in “Popular.” This allowed Ariana Grande to make “Popular” her own, down to the extended la-la-la-lahs.

“This new ending to ‘Popular,’ we weren’t sure if we wanted to do an extended ending of it,” the director explains. “But when I saw that hallway, her in the middle of that hallway with the pink morning light coming through—[that] if Ari could do it all in one shot and show how skilled she is at being Galinda, I think this hallway that it would be an instant classic. And so we popped this in last minute and she learned that choreography at the last second. And every time she did it, everyone’s smile was on their face. I mean that was a tour-de-force to see her. Ariana Grande at her peak Galinda, owning that space … that silhouette, that iconic moment is sort of solidified in my brain forever. I hope the audience feels that too.”

The OG Broadway cameos

The leading women of the Ozdust players, of course, had to be played by the original Glinda and Elphaba: Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. Chu knew this very well. “They’re playing the wise women, telling the history of Oz and how the Grimmerie came to be, and that they used to be the only people able to read the Grimmerie, but there was a prophecy of a new person that would be eventually able to read it when they pass,” Chu explains. “We find out later that it’s going to be Elphaba, but we tried to set up that history here. Whether people are actually listening or not, I have no idea, but we had to set up what the Grimmerie was and just to have them do it, it’s just so fun.”

He recalls how secretive the shoot had to be. “It was the middle of the night, and I think they, to see this giant set that we had built for a movie of a legacy that they built, these characters that they built from the ground up was a beautiful thing for them to see. We were all, again, all in tears all the time, and that Idina gets to do her iconic war cry and same thing with Kristin. She gets to do her soprano, so fun.”

The Wizard was inspired by Walt Disney

Chu had a blast creating the wizard with actor Jeff Goldblum, who did things like “magic and showing them little tricks and tap dancing and stuff.” He continued to describe how they came up with this version of certain type of “man of tomorrow.”

Chu explains, “This idea of the ultimate storyteller was something that we talked a lot about. How far would you go to delight people? Even if it takes you to a place of this action and violence and hatred or fear make things more entertaining. And what are you going to compromise for that? So setting him up as a playful Peter Pan-like character, Walt Disney-ish type character. It’s sort of a wish fulfillment that we’re all able to do together.”

Even the Wizard’s Oz diorama felt very World’s Fair or early Disneyland model. “And what would you want more than anything than Walt Disney to walk you into his like map of Disney? So I love this moment that he gets to present to them. That’s what his thoughts will look like: Wish fulfillment. Pull them into his sandbox. He actually says ‘Come into my sandbox’ and ‘Play with my toys,’ that’s something I always wish I had. And that sort of taps into a childhood fantasy of somebody that you want to fully trust.” And probably shouldn’t.

Wicked is like a Marvel musical movie

Thankfully not like Rogers: The Musical from Hawkeye—but with the action and big set pieces, Chu says Wicked is “like a Marvel movie” plus “musical fantasy [and] coming of age. We kept saying this is the craziest movie we’ve ever made—how can a genre have all of these things and plus be a musical? I don’t think we’ve had experience like this before.”

He explains how all these elements had to come together in the final act, with “Defying Gravity” setting up the next film. We see the alarms being raised against Elphaba and reactions from the other characters: the disappointment in “Nessa [as their] father has a heart attack. And Glinda is sort of relieved of the danger by Madame Moribble, [who is] going to take her under her wing, and how complicated that is for her. I think that moment is really hard. And Ariana just plays it perfectly, and then we see Fiyero flying out. We don’t know where he’s going to. Who is he going to? And then of course Cynthia flying in and her declaration threat to the wizard.”

In this sequence, the stage is being set for the story’s next act—even Boq stands alone in a Shiz overtaken by disarray. “I love this moment, I love this shot. Everyone’s singing. It just builds and builds,” Chu says, and adds how it all comes to a head with Elphaba’s war cry. “[Erivo] was singing it live on her rig. We’re spinning her around and she was like, ‘I need to do this live. Let me do it.’ And every time she did this note, our whole crew would just try to hold back our applause and yelling until she finished the note. And then it was just pure applause, like standing ovation in the room. She’s on the wire. Now she probably has tears in her eyes usually doing it. And then to be able to end on this, her final takeoff.”

Wicked is now out in theaters and on digital; Wicked: For Good continues the story this Thanksgiving.

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