In true Elphaba fashion, Cynthia Erivo couldn’t be happier to have Glinda share her magic Bad travel with her.

Erivo said it was “not a surprise at all” that Ariana Grande was chosen to star opposite her in the film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical. In fact, she was relieved to learn that she would be “defying gravity” with such a capable performer.

“Thank God,” Erivo said The New York Times in a new joint interview with Grande. “Because they weren’t the two ladies I auditioned with.”

Grande shared her own reaction when she found out Erivo would be her costar: “I said, ‘Thank God,'” the singer told the Times.

Although Erivo did not specify who she auditioned with, Reneé Rapp, Dove Cameron and Amanda Seyfried are among the actresses who have opened up to trying out for the role of Glinda. Seyfried even shared that her audition process intersected with her role as Elizabeth Holmes The fallout.

“I literally bent over backwards while playing the hardest role of my life,” Seyfried said in 2022. “But I think it also taught me how far I’ve come as a singer, and I really wanted to prove that.”

Meanwhile, Cameron said she was “so excited” that Grande, a dear friend, was cast in the film.

In Grande’s case, landing the role fulfilled a lifelong dream and gave her a chance to return to her musical theater roots.

“As soon as I started hearing rumors that it could potentially be a movie, all I wanted to do was get a chance to audition,” Grande told the BBC. Times. “Some members of my team at the time said, ‘You shouldn’t even audition,’ and I said, ‘You don’t understand, of course I have to. This is something that has to be earned.’ ‘I have so much to prove and I threw myself into it in every way possible.”

Grande discussed auditioning on a recent episode of the Sentimental men podcast, which explained that the lengthy process involved singing songs for both main characters, performing scenes from the Broadway script and, ultimately, meeting Elphaba who is hoping for chemistry lectures. Like Erivo, Grande read with two different actresses – whom she described as “amazing” – but neither was destined to become the Elphaba to her Glinda.

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Erivo and Grande only crossed paths after starring in the Jon M. Chu-directed film. When they heard the news, they tried their best to become friends.

“The first time we meet, she comes to my house and we just talk. We’re on my floor chatting,” Erivo said on the November 10 episode of Today’s. Sunday sitdown. “And the second time we get together is at Jon’s house. He has dinner, and then the dinner is over, and we all gather around the piano, and that’s the first time we sing. And that for us is a Very big moment because we can really do this together, not only as actresses but also as singers.”

She added, “I think we both also knew that we wanted more than just this working relationship. We had to build a friendship out there, and that’s what we have now.”

In cinemas from November 22, the first episode of the two-part part Bad film tells the origin story of Grande’s Glinda and Erivo’s Elphaba, two witches in Oz who forge an unlikely friendship while attending school at Shiz University. Unbeknownst to them, they are destined to become Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West, figures familiar to fans of Dorothy’s adventures in The Wizard of Oz. Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage and Bowen Yang are among the stars filling out the cast of the prequel story.