Ariana Grande holds Cynthia Erivo’s fingernail: A modern guide to movie promotion

Wicked has already soared to the top of the box office charts, grossing more than $251 million globally after less than a week in cinemas. But as popular as the film adaptation has been, its press tour is on a whole other level, largely thanks to its inseparable leading duo, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

Since March, the pair have been in hardcore promotion mode. They’ve presented at the Academy Awards dressed in their characters’ colours (Grande in pink and Erivo in green); they’ve got matching Wicked tattoos; and they’ve gushed over how much they’ve changed each other for good during press junkets.

Wicked co-stars Cynthia Erivo (left) and Ariana Grande want you to know they’re besties.Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Their mission statement is clear: bring Glinda and Elphaba’s on-screen friendship to life for the fans. What’s also clear is that Grande and Erivo are taking the task very seriously, ironically leading some to wonder just how genuine their closeness is.

In one particularly viral moment, they were asked how they felt about the impact the film’s final number, Defying Gravity, has had on audiences.

“People are taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity and really holding space with that,” US journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist said. As a result, Erivo was overcome with emotions, leading Grande to grab hold of her massive acrylic nail – not her hand, her nail – in tender support.

Their shared sentimentality during the movie’s press tour, which some argue has veered into the extreme, has inspired endless memes online, but it has also shone a spotlight on how modern promo tours operate.

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for the behind-the-scenes of a film to capture more attention than the film itself. We all remember the Don’t Worry Darling debacle of 2022, right? The alleged affair between director Olivia Wilde and leading man Harry Styles, as well as the rumoured drama it caused with the rest of the cast (to the point that people were convinced Styles spat on Chris Pine at the premiere), helped turn that relatively mediocre film into a major box office success.

A year later, the rumoured love affair between co-stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney while filming Anyone but You drove so many people to the cinema that it was credited with heralding the “return of the rom-com”. And even more recently, the supposed feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, both of whom star in the Colleen Hoover adaptation It Ends with Us, arguably eclipsed the film itself.

Love affairs, rifts and close friendships have long been an element of filmmaking. Just think back to 1963, when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton fell in love during the filming of Cleopatra. However, thanks to social media, never before have we had such unprecedented access to BTS drama and celebrity life.

You didn’t have to be on the 2023 Oscars red carpet, or following The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage, to see Hugh Grant’s painfully awkward interview with model Ashley Graham, in which he was unapologetically himself by answering questions such as “what are you wearing” with a snarky “my suit” – it was on TikTok 10 minutes later. Same goes for when Ryan Gosling jokingly brushed off Simu Liu on the red carpet while promoting Barbie last year, bringing his Ken-ergy to the real world and getting fans even more hyped about his character.

Look of love? Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney on the red carpet last year.Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Many celebrities have adapted to the modern-day press tour, leaning into their characters when off-screen, building charisma with their co-stars, and sharing even more of themselves in intimate, comedic (online) settings such as Hot Ones and the Vanity Fair lie detector test. Compared with carefully curated magazine covers or manufactured talk-show interviews, today’s press tours – which are online, non-stop and immediately available – scream authenticity, even if they are equally curated.

It was once enough to tease audiences with the same old red-carpet move. For example, Nicole Kidman used the same move with Tom Cruise and Keith Urban – they embrace her around the waist and whisper sweet nothings into her ear. But now, if celebrities want people to see the film in droves, they must either tend to the fans’ parasocial relationship or create some kind of intrigue beyond the plot of the film. One go-to move isn’t going to cut it.

However, as quick and effective as social media press tours are, they require a careful balance. Give too little and fans will assume a degree of pretentiousness. Give too much, like Grande and Erivo, and some may accuse them of inauthenticity.

But, as the Wicked duo surely knows, any press is good press, so it’s likely they will continue holding each other’s fingernails until they reach the end of the yellow brick road.

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