There was a standing ovation for Cynthia Erivo Thursday night following a screening of Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked” at the Academy Museum. That was not unexpected. More surprising, and perhaps deserving of a second standing ovation, was the now Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards nominated actress explaining the grueling training she went through to play Elphaba in the critically acclaimed and blockbuster adaptation of the stage musical sensation. To say her preparation is above and beyond is an understatement.
READ MORE: Jon M. Chu on how those major cameos in “Wicked” happened [Interview]
An outsider would assume that for a role of this nature, Erivo’s training would be relegated to additional vocal training and dance choreography. And, if she preferred, that would have been the extent of it. Yet, during a conversation moderated by Kristen Bell, Erivo revealed how much the physical requirements of a role mean to her.
“For this, I put myself through a lot,” Ervio explains. It was like waking up…my calls were very early, the makeup was practical, so that was already two and a half hours before we got on set. But I would get up and work out for two hours before getting in the car.”
Erivio’s pickup time for hair and make-up was 5 AM every morning. If you’re now doing the math in your head, two hours of working out beforehand does not allow for a lot of sleep. Yes, Erivo admits she was essentially getting just two to three hours of sleep a night for the entire production. But, in her mind, the two hours of training before going to her makeup chair were absolutely necessary.
“I had to be in wires, I was flying,” Erivo says. “So, those stunts need your body to be conditioned so that when you move [you don’t injure yourself]. And I was learning this as I was going along. I had never flown before. I just knew I wanted to. I’d flown very, a small amount, but nothing like this before, and that requires your core to be the strongest you could possibly be because the wires will take you from one place to another. Joan McLaren, my stunt coordinator, was so good with me. She was like, ‘Are you sure you want to do all of this?’ And I said, ‘Yes.'”
If you’re one of the millions who have already seen the Universal Pictures blockbuster, you know that at the end of the film, Elphaba grabs her broomstick and soars above the Emerald City. As the flying monkeys chase her, she does a complete 360-degree vertical turn. Erivo did not want these moments to be portrayed by a stunt person or a CG double. She notes, “What I would need to do is be ready enough so that when the wires are working to, move me from point A to point B to point C. If we’re doing a loop to loop, which is that big loop, I have to get myself over and around without my legs just falling behind me, which means that my core has to be [tight] from there. And then I have to turn something else on my legs and my hips to come follow through.”
The Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winner says she wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without taking care of her body. Moreover, she needed to sing at the same time, which meant keeping her voice on track was also paramount. Don’t feel sorry for her, however. She has zero regrets. It’s part of her work process for every role.
“I love it. I did the same thing for ‘Harriet.’ I was on a bike every morning before we were on set. I need that,” Erivo shares. “The feeling of it is sort of my fodder. I need to know that my body and my brain have worked so that when I get to the point where I’m doing it more, it feels like water. It feels natural.”
The two-time Oscar nominee wants to make it clear her rough schedule was “self-inflicted, I can admit that.” No director, producer, or studio executive was asking her to go through this. That being said, coming down from this physical and emotional high at the end of every shooting day was another matter entirely.
“I would try to wind down when we were taking off makeup because the makeup itself would take an hour and a half to take off anyway, so that’s at the end of the day,” Erivo recalls. “But I’m already like out, and no days were small. No days were small. There were no small dates. None.”
The strikes in 2023 also made this schedule much tougher than she initially expected. They were cast in 2021. Rehearsed from August to December 2022 when they began filming. They shot until July 2023, when the strike hit.
“So there was six months awaiting,” Ervio explains. “Then we went back at the top of this year in January and finished in February. The very last thing I shot was ‘Defying Gravity.’ So, this has been a really long, crazy, wild journey, and that six months was the craziest thing ever because you’re sort of walking a tightrope because you can’t drift so far away from the character that she disappears, and you can’t stay on the line. So much so that she doesn’t go away at all for six months.”
For anyone worried about Erivo’s mental and physical state during these endurance performances, she does find ways to take care of herself.
“There are practical things that I do,” Erivo says. “I learned that an infrared sauna blanket is very helpful with the bruising on the inside. I learned that a therapist is also really helpful with the bruising on the inside. I live a little bit like a monk when I’m doing these things. I naturally don’t drink or smoke or eat meat or any of those things. I’m sorry. I’m very boring, but I sort of stay. I am in my house. I stay indoors, and I try to take those moments when I can actually rest. I don’t get very much sleep doing these things. So the two or three hours that I do get, I try to make them good quality snoozes.”
“Wicked” is now playing nationwide.
