Cynthia Erivo felt comfortable going green for Wicked.
The actor plays Elphaba in Jon M. Chu’s upcoming movie based on the popular musical of the same name. Erivo described how her alter ego’s elaborate green make-up soon became a “second skin.”
“It was really comfy!” she said. “I think, depending on what we were doing for the day, it could take anything from two-and-a-half hours to four-and-a-half [in the make-up chair]. It felt like a second skin.”
She said she was “never irritated” by the emerald makeup.
An important choice at the outset
“I think a lot of research went into what shade would be right, what would sit on my skin in the right way and how I could take care of my skin while it was in the make-up,” Erivo told Empire. “There was the option to do CGI. I was asked if I wanted to do that — or to do practical — and I knew I wanted to do practical before I even started because I wanted to be able to look at my hands and see green hands.
“I wanted to look in the mirror and see a green face. I also wanted to see the reactions of other people seeing me as green person — as opposed to me walking in as myself — because it informed how I performed,” the Harriet star continued.
Erivo gained recognition for her acting work on stage and is delighted with the current trend for movie musicals such as Joker: Folie a Deux and Wonka.
“There’s something really special about a movie musical,” she said. “In its essence, it becomes a spectacle, whether you like it or not. I think that we don’t give audiences enough credit when it comes to musicals, so we pretend that musicals aren’t musicals. And I think now, it’s okay to just be like, ‘Hey, this is a musical, come and see it, you’ll survive … and you might even like it!’ ” she said.
