How Cynthia Erivo Hit Those High Notes in Wicked While Hoisted Up in the Air Wearing a Corset

Cynthia Erivo accomplished a remarkable feat by singing live while doing high-flying stunts in Wicked.

The Oscar nominee and her costar Ariana Grande opted to sing live on the set of the new musical movie, Erivo, 37, as Elphaba, and Grande, 31, as Glinda. But Erivo’s vocals were challenged even more when she decided to perform her own stunts, including flying over Oz during the film’s pivotal musical number “Defying Gravity.”

At a post-screening discussion at the DGA Theatre in New York City earlier this month, Erivo explained that she put herself through “rigorous training” to “make sure that her body was prepared.” 

“I had an amazing vocal coach who just helped me find the breath I needed in order to do it. Because usually if you’re singing something like that, that needs a lot of force, that needs a lot of sound. Usually you need the ground to push off of,” she explained.

“But when you don’t have it, you have to find it somewhere else. And so it was about replacing the ground with literally the air and my non-existent diaphragm, because I was in a corset.”

The actress admitted there was “a real learning curve” for her, but she was “really determined” since she “really wanted to do the song justice.” 

“I just did everything in my power that I could,” she said. “I endured whatever bruises and chafing and whatever it was necessary to. … I wanted to make sure that I could experience both what flight felt like and what it felt like to sing that song, in one. And I hope it was worth it.”

In a recent promotional video, Erivo is heard saying, “I knew going into this that stunts were to be needed, and I knew that I wanted to do my own stunts. I wanted to do the work.”

The Tony winner confessed that singing in the air with a corset was “a really strange sensation” because she had to learn “to shift the way” she breathes “in order to sing.”

She continued by noting, “When all is said and done, you’re now flying with a corset and a harness and songs, and it works. It really does feel like magic.”

Along with changing her breath work, the singer said on the Sentimental Men podcast that she refused to use the bathroom for up to 12 to 14 hours at a time during long production days. Although she says it was “probably a terrible idea,” she didn’t want to deal with the process of putting on her costume and harnesses to film stunts. 

“There’s too many layers,” she said, revealing that there were “two or three different harnesses for different stunts” and she wore them over her corset and costume when used.

Wicked is in theaters now.