Lady Gaga was reportedly lined up to star in Wicked
Lady Gaga was allegedly once linked with the Wicked movie (Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images/Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
Pop superstar Lady Gaga was once linked with the role of Elphaba in Wicked, if rumours are to be believed.
Just days ahead of the film’s release, Page Six reported that the “Disease” singer was originally in talks to play the Wicked Witch of the West, while heartthrob Shawn Mendes was linked with the role of Fiyero.
“They had meetings, the two of them, about the character and who she would be. [Gaga] was essentially cast in his version, then it fell through,” a source close to Stephen Daldry, who was originally named as the director but left the project in 2020, told the tabloid.
Following the success of A Star Is Born in 2018, Gaga went on to star in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, and this year’s Joker: Folie à Deux, which was panned by critics and audiences alike.
Based on the smash-hit Broadway and West End musical, which itself was based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the film is directed by Jon Chu and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Galinda and Elphaba respectively.
Bridgerton hunk Jonathan Bailey plays love interest Fiyero and the cast also features Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible.
In the run-up to the its release, the film’s stars have graced red carpets around the world, with Erivo and Grande talking about working with each other, and even shedding a tear or two.
It has not all been plain sailing though.
Erivo was thrust into controversy for slamming a fan-made poster for the film, which was meant to emulate the original Broadway poster from the early 2000s. She described it as the “wildest, most offensive thing I have seen”, adding that it was worse than AI images depicting her and Grande fighting.
“None of this is funny, none of it is cute, it degrades me, it degrades us,” Erivo wrote on Instagram.
Just a few weeks later, jokes abounded when toy company Mattel was forced to apologise after a web address linking to a porn site was mistakenly printed on the packaging for its dolls promoting the movie.
Wicked opens on Friday (22 November), with part two due this time next year.
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