Ariana Grande Says Paparazzi Used Hang-Gliders to Fly Over the Wicked Set and Take Video

Paparazzi apparently took things to the next level in order to leak photos and videos from the set of Universal’s upcoming “Wicked” musical adaptation. Cast members Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey recently spoke together on behalf of VMan magazine and expressed shock over the hang-gliding paparazzi that flew over the “Wicked” set one day.

“We were very spoiled to have done this with [director Jon M. Chu],” Grande said about the experience of filming the two-part musical. “It felt like a teeny, little secret student thing — its intimacy. It felt so small and private until all of a sudden, we were outside, and the Daily Mail was hang-gliding over our set — oh, he should play the pterodactyl in your film [‘Jurassic Park’].”

Based on the blockbuster Broadway musical of the same name, “Wicked” is a prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” that centers on the tested friendship between Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) and Grande’s Glinda the Good Witch. Bailey plays their hot shot classmate and love interest Fiyero.

“There were certain elements of it that I was incredibly impressed by and I think that is because of the love and care of [producer] Marc Platt and Jon Chu,” he said. “Obviously we’ve grown up loving theater and musical theater, I always felt attached to that wonderment. I think my expectation might have been that somehow in the making of something, you lose that. But we were on those incredible sets.”

Chu confirmed in an interview with Vanity Fair earlier this year that his cast did all their own singing live on set during the filming of the musical numbers. He told Erivo and Grande that singing live on set meant “there’s going to be a lot of wind in your air pipes. Is that okay?” He said the actors responded with confidence, saying, “Yeah. That’s what we do.”

“These are live vocals,” Chu added. “When we were shooting it, those girls were like, ‘Fuck the pre-records. We’re going live.’”

The first “Wicked” movie is scheduled to open in theaters on Nov. 22 from Universal Pictures. Head over to VMan’s website to read Grande and Bailey’s interview in its entirety.

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Update: 2024-09-02

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