‘Life is full’: Jon M. Chu on the awards, the L.A. fires, and the two ‘Wicked’ actresses who keep him grounded
Plus, he tells Gold Derby which Wicked spin-off movie he’d most “want to see.”
“Life is full.” That is how Wicked director Jon M. Chu describes the whirlwind of the past few months, from screenings and awards shows, to the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. This whole experience “has been crazy,” he says in our interview. It began with “a new baby on the night of the premiere,” and culminated in having to “evacuate” his home.
“I got back into my house just a couple days ago,” he explains while taking a break from editing Wicked: For Good, the highly anticipated sequel that’s due out in November. “That’s our second evacuation in the last month. My heart hurts for the city, and for the many people who lost their homes and their lives. I know that we’re very blessed in having each other and being in this job, and so it’s a lot of mixed things.”
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Universal Pictures’ film adaptation of the popular Broadway stage musical has absolutely dominated the cultural zeitgeist, thanks in no small part to actresses Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. It’s a box-office behemoth, and now, thanks to the Golden Globes, it’s also a major award winner.
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Delivering the Globes speech for the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement prize was a “pretty epic moment,” Chu readily admits. However, there were sections that he “blacked out on, for sure,” he confesses. “I remember looking back at the girls, because they help ground me, and Michelle Yeoh, of course, and Jeff Goldblum.”
The filmmaker adds, “I’m pretty good in a crowd, I think, because I’m a director, and I know how to talk to people. But going up live on television for that award, surrounded by all of these people that you look up to — people I’ve worked with, from The Rock to Jesse Eisenberg to Aquafina to Michelle — that was very surreal. And then my mouth just started going before my brain could catch up, and it was a lot to know that if you stumble here, everyone sees it.”
However, what he really wanted to communicate in his speech was his appreciation to the audience. “That has been the biggest reward,” notes Chu. “They have taken this movie, unlike any movie I’ve ever been a part of, and brought it into their lives and become creative because of it, making costumes or making artwork and writing their own stories. It’s important at this time to recognize that making art that’s entertaining and is a radical act of optimism say something about our state of mind and sets a horizon line. I think those are very important, and I’m really grateful for the Globes to recognize that in our work.”
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Erivo and Grande have been “the best creative partners on this,” Chu declares while sitting next to Squishmallow plushies of Elphaba and Glinda in his editing room. “I mean, you don’t make the movie if you don’t find them. That’s something that we knew from the very beginning. [Producer] Mark Platt would always say, ‘You know, we don’t have to make this movie.’ They were doing fine as a stage show. And so the pressure was on when we were searching.”
When the two actresses “showed up in the room, it became very apparent like, ‘Oh, now we have to make this movie.'” Besides their “amazing” voices, they really “made these characters their own,” Chu says. “They dug in deep. They committed their lives for two years to become these characters which, when you’re as big as they are, that’s an expensive two years to take off. But they were fully committed, and I loved every moment of finding this movie with them.”
As for the Wicked film ensemble at large, “Every single person pulled so much more than their weight,” he raves, especially considering “the history of every single one of these characters. To have both the winks of what they were, to what they have become? This cast contributed to the soup of Wicked.” Even after filming completed, they still “have the most fun doing all of this award stuff together. It’s been a blast.”
Was Chu ever worried that audiences might not be interested in seeing a big-budget film adaptation of Wicked? “Yes, that risk comes with any movie that we make,” he responds. “It doesn’t just have to be a musical. But I also think that comes with the job of being a director. If you take big swings, people may not agree with them or may not want to see them. My experience in doing that in the past, both wins and losses for myself, really helped me have the courage, or the grit, to get through and really rely on each other and say, ‘Let’s link arms and do the best work we can do, no matter what happens.'”
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Exploring all of Nathan Crowley‘s practical sets “was everything that you could imagine, but more,” Chu states. “Actually walking into Emerald City and going into the salon to pick up a bottle of shampoo off the rack and have it be made by Oz Tech, it reminds you of the hundreds and thousands of hands that created every label. Every time I walked on set, it felt like I dropped into a new world, and I had to use my tools of cinema to try to capture it for the audience. It was awe-inspiring. It felt like walking into Cleopatra when they were making it back in the day, or Lawrence of Arabia, in the grand tradition of making movies. It brought us to tears.”
The official title for part two is Wicked: For Good, which was “always on our scripts,” he confirms. “It’s interesting, because in the script we called part one Defying Gravity, and part two For Good. But we didn’t know if we were ever going to call it that or not. And so I’m glad that For Good made it in. We didn’t have any other name. What I love about For Good is, it gives us a destination for movie two. It gives us sort of a place that we know we’re going to end up. It’s probably the song that’s going to play at my funeral one day,” he chuckles. “It’s an iconic song that will be with us for many, many years, and it’s my favorite.”
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As for any potential future spin-off movies, Chu really hopes to learn more about “the two Superstars of Wiz-O-Mania” one day, aka the characters played by original Wicked Broadway stars Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. “I want to see if they’re the most famous actors in Emerald City,” he smiles. “I want to know what their backstory is, how they ended up in the Oz Players, and how that show came to be. I think that would be really fun.”
Chu and his team are “very proud” of Wicked, and they can’t wait for everyone to see the second installment. “We’re very blessed that people are seeing the movie inch by inch, frame by frame, because we put so much work in every frame. And we have a lot of breadcrumbs all over it. So when the audience is picking it apart, I just love it.”
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