EXCLUSIVE: Wicked production sound mixer Simon Hayes says Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba opposite Ariana Grande’s Glinda in the musical extravaganza, has the prowess of an Olympian, which enabled his team to achieve vastly more than they’d expected.
When Hayes and his unit were setting up microphones for the dynamic tour de force number “Defying Gravity” that sees Erivo soar away on a broomstick, they figured that the star would have to stop to catch her breath while doing somersaults for Universal’s hit picture.
Erivo had three microphones on her: a personal mic on the center of her forehead, another fixed on the brim of her hat and one placed on her costume.
“What we didn’t realize was that Cynthia would be able to do these gymnastic movements and still sing perfectly. It didn’t faze her in any way,” he marvels.
They didn’t know at the time that before she’d arrive on set at the crack of dawn, she was running “10 kilometers every morning to keep her cardio system basically at the level of an Olympic athlete.”
In fact, this was something I was well aware of. Back in 2018, I was on the Chicago set of Steve McQueen’s movie Widows. Early one morning, I was being ferried to the location and I witnessed Erivo whiz past us, an incredible sight.
But Hayes was unaware of her athletic capabilities.
“I would say to her, ‘Look, I’ve recorded live vocals with people doing action many times before, and normally they’re out of breath at the end of a take. You don’t seem to have that problem.’ And she said, ‘Well, I’ve been training for this.’ She’d been training to the extent that she didn’t need a recovery time — not only was she singing perfectly, but she could do it again and again and again because she was so athletically fit. She was running every morning before a whole day of work on Wicked,” says Hayes, still stunned by the memory of watching her do the acrobatics on “Defying Gravity” and sing like a diva at the same time.
RELATED: Breaking Down “Defying Gravity”: ‘Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, Jon M. Chu & Crafts Team On Stunts, Singing Live & Finding Elphaba’s Iconic Note
