Cynthia Erivo Reveals Her Take on the Emotional Ending of ‘Wicked: For Good’

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Cynthia Erivo is sharing her thoughts on the emotional ending of Wicked: For Good.

During a wide-ranging conversation at the Elphaba’s Wicked Retreat Airbnb Originals Experience event on Dec. 3, the actress, 38, reflected on the conclusion to her character Elphaba’s story in the sequel to 2024’s Wicked.

The second film ends with Elphaba staging her own melting death by hiding under a trap door. She and her lover, Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) — who left her best friend, Glinda (Ariana Grande), at their wedding and has been turned into straw thanks to an earlier protective spell — are then seen walking into the sunset away from Oz. Before leaving, Elphaba gives her Grimmerie spell book to a newly empowered Glinda, and the two reconcile, singing one last reprise of “For Good.”

The song features Elphaba singing the moving line, “Just look at me / Not with your eyes, with theirs.”

Touching on the intimate moment between the two characters — and that poignant line — Erivo said, “Two things are happening in that line. It’s both trying to help Glinda see what’s actually happening, but it’s also a comfort.”

“I think she sees that her friend sees her one way,” she explained. “And I love between the lines when you can say something in a phrase, but so much more is going on.”

Erivo continued: “Look at me, look at me. Not with your eyes. Because she knows that Glinda will see something very different to what other people see. And she has to remind her that that’s what you see is not what everyone else sees. And you have to be okay with that as well because that’s the only way we can move forward.”

The actress said she loves the line “because it’s something that Elphaba has to record, too.”

“I think it’s the first time that she settles into what has to come next,” Erivo noted.

The final scene of the movie shows a flashback to Elphaba and Glinda’s college days, as the pair sit in a poppy field, with the former in her black pointy hat. Glinda turns and whispers something in her friend’s ear in a callback to the iconic logo for the Broadway production of Wicked.

Erivo previously told USA Today that she had no idea that would be the scene used to close out the two-part movie series.

“We had shot this wonderful day of moments together [in a field]. [Director] Jon [M. Chu] said he was going to use it somewhere, but he wouldn’t tell me where. Then when I saw the film, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s where it is!’ ”

Chu, 46, told the outlet that he initially didn’t know “exactly where [the scene] would go” but thought, “That’s interesting.” He explained, “It felt like a natural way that you would hang out with a friend. But then once we had it in the can, I was like, ‘Oh, this has got to go at the end of the movie.’ It’s just such a beautiful moment.”

During the conversation at the Airbnb event, Erivo also shared the biggest lesson she learned from shooting the movies and portraying Elphaba — and it hits at the heart of Wicked’s themes.

“That things aren’t always as they seem, that what you see isn’t always what you get, and that you can expect people to grow and change for better or for worse. And both are okay,” she said.

She described the journey of filming the back-to-back movies as “a long ride,” and said she’s been “overwhelmed” by fans’ support and appreciation for the films.

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“I’ve been really overwhelmed by just how supportive people have been and the dialogues that have been started because of it and conversations that have come up and how passionate everyone’s been and the difference in all of that,” she said.

Wicked: For Good is in theaters now.