Love was a word forbidden in Jon M. Chu’s Emerald City.
"Nobody says 'love' in Oz. That was a rule that we came into this movie with," the Wicked: For Good director told Entertainment Weekly.
The rule held up until a certain rehearsal with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
At the end of the film, an emotional encounter between Glinda and Elphaba takes place, and the actresses improvised being separated by a closet door. Glinda reaches out to Elphaba in tears. That was the moment the director thought about breaking the rule.
"I just realized, 'Oh my gosh, that's the moment,'" Chu said. "[Singing] 'For Good' is them being there for each other. But the closet is when they can act how they really feel. That door closes, it's like that moment that you say goodbye to someone, and you're home alone, and the silence, and you can now let it all out."
Chu felt that the characters had been through a lot and deserved to use the word.
"They can say I love you because they've earned the right to say I love you," he said.
Chu confessed that he broke the role after seeing the success of Wicked.
"We realized the audience is in and they want the characters to grow. I knew I could fight off any note about catching anybody up about any plot," he said. "It's not about the plot, 'It's about the girls, stupid,' is what was repeated over and over."
Wicked: For Good is in cinemas now.
