Cynthia Erivo on how she feels when fans try to recreate viral Wicked interview
By Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has said fans try to hold her finger when they meet her following a viral interview featuring her and co-star Ariana Grande.
It comes after an interview ahead of the release of the first Wicked film last year was shared widely on social media, showing the pair being emotional and holding each other’s fingers, with Grande, who plays Glinda, saying she was “trying to keep the space as warm as possible” for Erivo’s character Elphaba.
Speaking to British GQ ahead of the release of follow-up film Wicked: For Good later this month, Erivo, 38, addressed the interview.
She said: “It was such an innocent moment of confusion and human reaction.
“I received one thing, Ari received another, and Tracy (the reporter interviewing them) said something but probably meant to say something else, and then took back the thing that she was saying – it was all so confusing, so that all of us were, in the end, confused but moved.
“It was very strange.”
She then spoke about fans wanting to recreate the moment, to which she replied: “I hate it. I don’t want anyone holding my finger.”
Erivo also spoke about her father telling her he never wanted to see her again during her childhood, after an argument over a ticket, and added that she has not seen him since and does not have his phone number or address, knowing very little about his life.
She said: “I just didn’t see it coming. I guess you wouldn’t, would you?”
Asked whether she wanted to see him again and ask him why he left, Erivo replied: “I don’t think it serves me, it’s his why.
“It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean that we’ll have a relationship.
“And I think I’ve found the closure I want, my own way. Whatever needed to happen after that moment happened.”
Erivo will be honoured at the GQ Men of the Year event on November 18 in London, while the full interview can be read in the magazine’s Men Of The Year issue.
