Erivo, Cynthia

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      How to Watch the SAG Awards

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      In a wide-open best picture race, the awards, which are streaming on Netflix, could offer some clarity.This year’s Oscars best picture race is, for the first time in years, wide open.Will the newly ascendant front-runner “Anora,” Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner about a stripper who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, take the statuette? Will Brady Corbet’s epic “The Brutalist” find its way to the top? And what about the wild card, the papal thriller “Conclave,” which recently took top honors at the EE British Academy Film Awards, or BAFTAs — Britain’s version of the Oscars?With the days ticking down until the March 2 Academy Awards ceremony, the Screen Actors Guild Awards could offer some clarity. In four of the past five years, the SAGs have given their top honor — best ensemble — to the eventual Oscar winner.The 15 awards, which are voted on by actors and other performers who belong to the SAG-AFTRA union, honor the best film and television performances from the past year. The movie musical “Wicked” and the FX series “Shogun” are the leading nominees.Here’s how to watch, and what to watch for.What time does the show start, and where can I watch?The two-hour ceremony begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time (5 p.m. Pacific time) at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a historic venue that has also hosted the Oscars. For the second year, the awards show will stream live and exclusively on Netflix; there is no way to watch without a subscription.Is there a red carpet?The red carpet preshow will stream live on Netflix beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern time (4 p.m. Pacific time). The YouTube star Lilly Singh and the actress and former “Saturday Night Live” comedian Sasheer Zamata will host the event, which will include interviews with nominees and the announcement of the winners in the best stunt ensemble categories.Who is hosting?Kristen Bell, who recently starred in the Netflix rom-com “Nobody Wants This,” will steer the ship. This will be her second time hosting; the first was in 2018.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Cynthia Erivo Will Host This Year’s Tony Awards

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      The actress won a Tony Award for “The Color Purple,” and is now nominated for an Oscar for playing Elphaba in the film adaptation of “Wicked.”Cynthia Erivo, the Tony Award-winning actress whose Oscar-nominated performance in the “Wicked” film has brought her wide recognition, will host this year’s Tony Awards.The American Theater Wing and the Broadway League — the two organizations that present the awards — announced on Wednesday that Erivo would host the ceremony on June 8 at Radio City Music Hall. Much of the event will be broadcast on CBS.Erivo, 38, is a British actress who had her breakout role in “The Color Purple,” starring as Celie in a revival of the musical adaptation of the Alice Walker novel. That production opened on Broadway in 2015; Erivo’s performance was the talk of the town that season, and she won the Tony Award for best leading actress in 2016.She pivoted quickly to work in film and television, picking up two Oscar nominations, for best leading actress and for best original song, for the 2019 film “Harriet,” and this year she is nominated as best leading actress for “Wicked,” which is the first installment of a two-part film. (The second half, in which Erivo also stars, is to be released in November.) In the “Wicked” films, Erivo plays Elphaba, the green-skinned witch whose debatable wickedness is the subject of the story.Erivo has been busy this year — ubiquitous as she has promoted “Wicked” with her co-star Ariana Grande, but also pursuing her own projects. On Tuesday, the Hollywood Bowl announced one more: in August Erivo will star as Jesus in a one-weekend revival of the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.”The Tony Awards honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway; this year’s ceremony will consider shows that open between April 26, 2024, and April 27, 2025. This year’s nominees are to be announced on May 1. More

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      What ‘Wicked’ Has to Say About Our Current Political Moment

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      By breaking the story into two movies, the emphasis in “Part One” shifts to a nation’s potential decline into authoritarianism. Sound familiar?In the big-screen adaptation of “Wicked,” Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) uses magic to defend her sister and unwittingly destroys a courtyard mural of the Wizard at Shiz University. When her outburst shatters the wall, it also unearths an image that has been intentionally covered up: the school’s original founders, animal professors whose ability to speak, teach humans, and organize politically posed a threat to the Wizard’s autocratic reign.This surprising fact is revealed early on, but as I watched it, I realized Elphaba’s discovery came too late.As a repeat viewer of Broadway’s “Wicked,” I’m usually fascinated by how the story’s retrospective lens encourages us to sympathize with Elphaba, who eventually will become the Wicked Witch of the West. Her rich back story — she’s a perennial outsider and highly empathetic person — has forced me to rethink my assumptions about her and reflect on how easily I accepted L. Frank Baum’s own prejudices and his representation of her as a one-dimensional villain in his novel, “The Wizard of Oz.”But, unlike the stage version, which tracks Elphaba as a young adult to her fateful encounter with Dorothy, the movie delves even more into Elphaba’s biography. It follows her to Shiz University, where she ends up rooming with her frenemy, Galinda, later renamed Glinda (Ariana Grande), whose jealousy of Elphaba’s magical powers leads to conflict. The film ends at the characters’ climactic midpoints. “If Part One is about choices,” the director, Jon M. Chu, recently told Entertainment Weekly, “Part Two is about consequences.”But for now that also means the story remains unresolved. At the end of the Broadway version, there’s relief in the surprise ending when we learn that the Wicked Witch was far kinder than we gave her credit for and that she successfully challenged the Wizard’s dominance.Instead, onscreen, Elphaba is left suspended in midair (on her broom), made a scapegoat by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) as the Shiz professor Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), falsely warns the people of Oz about an enemy who must be captured. Madam Morrible goes even further, blasting on the loudspeaker, “Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature. This distortion! This repulsion! This wicked witch!”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Is the Real ‘Wicked’ Movie the Press Tour?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked” has been long in the works and perhaps anticipated for even longer. Starring Ariana Grande (billed as Ariana Grande-Butera) as Galinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, it is an ornate adventure that serves as a sort of prequel to “The Wizard of Oz.” (It is also the first of two films; the second one will be released next November.)Grande and Erivo have been praised for their performances onscreen, but they have also been performing in a parallel show, making viral magic on the press tour. The result has been a film rollout that at times feels louder than the film itself.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how “Wicked” survived the transition from stage to film, how Grande and Erivo inscribed new narrative into their roles, and how the real film may well be Grande and Erivo’s public appearances.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Watch Ariana Grande Swing From a Chandelier in ‘Wicked’

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      The director Jon M. Chu narrates the musical scene, also featuring Cynthia Erivo, where Grande performs the song “Popular.”In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The song “Popular” from “Wicked” has secured a firm place in pop culture in the 21 years since the show opened on Broadway. So how to make the song fresh for the film adaptation?This was one of the major challenges for the film’s director, Jon M. Chu. His formula was a little practical effects, a little razzmatazz and a whole lot of Ariana Grande.The scene has Glinda (Grande) working to improve the image and perception of her roommate, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). In the process, Glinda’s suitcases almost come to life as pop-up closets that she raids for her task.“In each of these devices,” Chu said in his narration, “even though they seem simple, there’s grown men in small spaces pulling it open and shutting it. And the engineering in each took months and months to design right.”The other element involves the timing of Grande’s singing, and the way she works the pink peignoir she’s wearing (designed by Paul Tazewell). She swings on a chandelier in it and slides across the wood floor in it as well, singing live on set throughout.“Ari is just a master of comedy,” Chu said. “You can see it in all her moves, and how she interacts when she acts with Cynthia Erivo. When you actually listen to it, too, her beats and her pauses are just masterful.”Read the “Wicked” review.Read a tearful interview with its stars.Read an interview with the director.Read about the costume design.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Wicked’ Review: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Oz

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      Cynthia Erivo is the strongest draw in this splashy, overly long movie, which is the first installment in a two-part adaptation of the Broadway show.With its flying monkeys and magical shoes, oh my, the story of the Wizard of Oz has been lodged in the popular imagination for over a century. It is, after all, an archetypal American myth: an epic of good and evil, the comfort (and dreariness) of home, the draw (and freedom) of the road, the perils of power and the yearning for transformation. The 1939 film with Judy Garland, in particular, is so embedded in the American cinematic DNA that it’s inspired everyone from Martin Scorsese to David Lynch, Spike Lee and John Waters, who once called (accurately!) the wicked witch “every bad little boy’s and girl’s dream of notoriety and style.”I wonder what Waters will make of “Wicked” and its green-hued, deeply sincere heroine, Elphaba, a ready-made meme machine played by Cynthia Erivo in what becomes a showstopper of a performance. Both the character and the actress are the strongest draws in this splashy, largely diverting, tonally discordant and unconscionably long movie, which is the first installment in a two-part adaptation of the Broadway show “Wicked.” That juggernaut opened at the Gershwin Theater in 2003 and shows no signs of (ever) closing; it will presumably still be raking it in when “Wicked Part Two” is set to open in November 2025.Like the stage musical — Stephen Schwartz wrote the music and lyrics, while Winnie Holzman wrote the book — the movie centers on Elphaba and Glinda, short for Galinda (Ariana Grande, fiercely perky), witches from the enchanted Land of Oz. Written by Holzman and Dana Fox, it opens right after Elphaba, a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West, is declared dead. (Dorothy is nowhere to be seen.) Glinda, a.k.a. Glinda the Good, floats in to belt the catchy “No One Mourns the Wicked,” and subsequently goes down memory lane to relate her and Elphaba’s tale, focusing on their tenure at Shiz University, a campus populated by a hardworking ensemble and anchored by a waterfront, Disney-esque turreted castle.“Wicked” is based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” and the big surprise in each work is that Elphaba isn’t as bad as her reputation. Hers is a classic saga of misunderstanding retooled for contemporary sensibilities, a chronicle of alienation and belonging, inchoate desire and heavy-handed moralizing that, onscreen, begins in Munchkinland when her father was the governor, her mother was a cheat and Elphaba the inconvenient result. At some point, her mother dies, as they do in fairy tales, and Elphaba grows into a sober, bespectacled child the color of farm-fresh asparagus (Karis Musongole) and, in short order, a serious, very talented melancholic.The director Jon M. Chu opens “Wicked” big and only goes bigger, at times to a fault. His credits include “Crazy Rich Asians” and the musical “In the Heights,” but “Wicked” is a horse of another color and it’s filled with huge sets, some dozen musical numbers and many moving parts that generations of fans know intimately. From the start, Chu gives “Wicked” an accelerated pace, amping it with restless, swooping camerawork and overloading it with a surfeit of everything, with ceaselessly moving bodies and eye-popping props. There’s much to ooh and ahh over, be it Elphaba’s eyeglasses with their seashell spiral or her beautiful Issey Miyake-style pleats, but Chu’s revved-up maximalism doesn’t leave much room to savor it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Singing ‘Wicked’ Fans Are Anything but Popular

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      Some fans who have attended early screenings of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical have treated it as a singalong. Not everyone is thrilled.Angela Weir went into a screening of “Wicked” on Monday night ready to be transported to the Land of Oz. But when Glinda (Ariana Grande) began to sing “Popular,” one of the musical’s early numbers, she was not the only one singing.“It started slow. Then people heard each other — it was like they encouraged each other,” Weir said on Tuesday. “It was a beautiful scene, and then you’re taken out of it.”As anticipation builds for the film’s release on Friday, some fans who have attended early screenings have ignored theater norms to sing right along with their favorite characters, much to the chagrin and annoyance of other “Wicked” enthusiasts. Many have taken to social media to issue a strict edict: Shush.As a debate grew on TikTok and Reddit, a possible solution emerged this week: For those who want to join in on the duet “What Is This Feeling?” between Grande and Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, more than 1,000 theaters across North America will host singalong screenings starting on Christmas Day.A representative for Universal said the company would not comment on the debate, and the off-key serenades have continued in the meantime.Weir, 35, said the singing at a screening in the suburbs of Charlotte, N.C., was particularly distracting during the movie’s finale, when Elphaba belts out the show’s most famous ballad, “Defying Gravity.”

      @arweirr i did like it tho #wicked #pleasedontsing #oscars ♬ original sound – Angela 🙂↔️

      @jordycray Time and place! #fyp #foryou #wicked #wickedmovie #arianagrande #cynthiaerivo #musical #popculture #popculturenews ♬ original sound – jordycray We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More