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Speaker 2: Hand movies be cursed. We've talked about this with scary movies,
but what about family movies. Over eighty five years after
the original, some strange events are happening with the prequels
as well. Follow me down the rabbit Hole about the
Wizard of Oz franchise. Hello, friends, and welcome back to
the rabbit hole. Today we are talking about the Wizard
Laws franchise. We're going to explore the layers of Oz,
from the nineteen thirty nine classic to the modern twenty
twenty four twenty twenty five wicked phenomenon that has literally
taken the world by storm. Thank you Abby and Paige
for requesting this episode, and of course before we get started,
I love to think our sponsors, So thank you wisewof
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right now. Today we are stepping behind the curtain of
the cinematic masterpiece to uncover a history written in hospital
records and freak accidents. You know, the songs and the
Ruby Slippers. But you might not know about the Oz Curse.
It's a legend born from the brutal physical toll the
nineteen thirty nine production took on its stars, leaving us
to wonder was the road to the Emerald City paved
with more than just yellow brick. Let's dive in. We
all know the Wizard of Oz. It was a Technicolor masterpiece.
While it wasn't the first movie to be produced in Technicolor,
it was the most iconic and influential film to use
the three strip Technicolor process, especially because Technicolor was still
in its infancy at the time. But for the cast
and crew working on the MGM lot in nineteen thirty
eight and thirty nine, the experience was less of a
fairy tale and more of an endurance test. Let's get
into the Oz Curse and the brutal reality of early
Hollywood filmmaking. First of all, there were five different directors
this movie went through. The first director, Norman Taurog, was
essentially a technical director, used to get the gears turning
on this pre production casting in early Technicolor tests. However,
once the studio saw his initial tests, they decided he
wasn't the right fit for this whimsical tone that they
had imagined and reassigned him to the Adventures of Tom
Sawyer movie. The second director, Richard Thorpe, filmed for roughly
two weeks. He shot the now lost footage of Dorothy
and a Blonde Wig and the original ten Man, which
is a story in and of itself that we will
get into in just a little while. However, the producer,
Mervin Lee Roy, felt that Thorpe's footage lacked a fairytale
quality and was just way too grounded. Also, he accused
him of rushing the actors, and Leroy was unhappy with
the results that were produced under Thorpe, so Thorpe was
fired and all of his work was completely scrapped and
they reached out all that George Kukor, the third director,
served as a creative consultant for only a few days
during the production shutdown. Kukor never actually filmed a single frame. However,
he made the most significant creative decisions. He told Judy
Garland to lose the blonde wig and act way more naturally,
and he redesigned the wicked witch as a traditional hag
rather than this glamorous Villain. He left only because he
was already contractually obligated to begin directing Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 3: Victor Fleming came in.
Speaker 2: He was the fourth director, and he did the majority
of this film. He is the only director credited.
Speaker 3: On screen in the credits.
Speaker 2: Flemming was pulled from the film just days before completion
and replaced to save the movie Gone with the Wind
from its previous director, George Koko. Kucker had been fired
after clashing with Clark Gable and a producer on that film,
and Fleming was known in Hollywood as the time as
this like fixer guy, so it just made sense that
he would need to go where he's more needed, which
was Gone with the Wind. And then they brought in
King Viidor to finish the Wizard of Oz. Fighter stepped
in to film the remaining scenes, including the Sepia Toned
Kansas sequences and the Over the Rainbow musical number. Fighter
chose to remain uncredited out of respect for Fleming, who
had done the bulk of the.
Speaker 3: Work for this film.
Speaker 2: He just really didn't want to take away from what
he felt was Flimming's crowning achievement. The director changes were
the least of the issues on set of this film.
The lighting was a primary source of misery for all
who worked on it. Because the Technicolor three strip process
was filmed with extremely low light sensitivity, the sets had
to be flooded with intense light to capture those vibrant colors.
Cinematographer Harold Rawson, whose insights were famously documented in the
book The Making of The Wizard of Oz, described the
sound stages as brutally hot. To achieve the necessary exposure,
every available carbon arc lamp in Hollywood was hauled into
this studio. The heat from those lamps frequently raised the
set's temperature above one hundred degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 3: Actors who were weighed.
Speaker 2: Down by heavy costumes and thick prosthetic makeup often collapsed
from heat exhaustion. When I found out this detail, I
immediately thought of the Lion, So then, of course I
did some digging into that to find out that the
cowardly Lion played by Bert Laar, wore a ninety pound
costume suit made of genuine lion skin. It did not breathe,
and he was soaked in sweat within minutes of putting
it on. This suit, although very authentic, was also incredibly gross.
Not only was the suit made of actual lion skin
and fur, it was also mixed with human hair. The
source of the human hair is not known, so maybe
they got it in a regular, normal way, who knows.
And in addition to that, as if that wasn't bad enough,
because of the heat, Lar naturally would sweat profusely, soaking
the suit, which would then result in this like really
disgusting body odor mix with lion leather, and the costume
had to be dried over night with industrial equipment, and
that really just like set in this like stink of
him just sweating disgusting amounts into this suit. So the
smell just compounded on itself the entire time that they
were filming, and Lar had to eat and drink through
a straw during all of the filming because of the
restrictive mass that sealed the costume to his skin, so
he couldn't even eat and drink normally. So imagine that,
like the tempts are over one hundred degrees, you can't
eat and drink regularly, and you have this giant suit on.
Of course he's passing out from heatstroke. Not only was
he a severe hazard. Apparently, there were also real fires
on set. Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch, suffered
second and third degree burns during her fiery exit from
munchkin Land. Her hospital records and later refusal to work
with fireworks were proof of this fire and her PTSD
resulting from it. The disappearing act really relied on this
hidden elevator beneath the floor and a simultaneous burst of pyrotechnics.
She was supposed to be lowered down while the flames
went up, no harm, no foul. During the first take,
the stunt worked perfectly. However, director Fleming wanted a second
take just to be sure it was basically like a
safety take. On this second attempt, the pyrotechnic flash was
triggered before Hamilton had fully descended into the trap door.
The fire instantly ignited Hamilton's broom and the gauze veil
attached to her hat. Because her hand was still gripping
the broom and her face was still above the floor line,
she bore the full force of the flames. Not only
was the fire a significant problem, but her makeup caused
another layer of danger. So the Wicked Witch is famous
for her saturated green skin, right. We all know that.
To achieve this iconic green hue. However, the studio used
a copper based green paint, which posed risks to human
skin through prolonged or direct contact, and it was directly
on her skin. Plus, copper is a conductor for heat
and is highly toxic. So as the fire burned her skin,
the makeup began to cook into her open wounds, and
then the crew rushed to her, knowing the makeup could
cause severe copper poisoning if it injured her bloodstream through
the burns something, they started rubbing her down with rubbing
alcohol and acid tone to scrub this green paint off
her raw burned skin. So she's got open wounds, and
they're pouring literal alcohol and actone into these wounds, and
she's getting copper poisoning all the while. Talk about painful.
Hamilton later described this cleaning process as more painful than
the fire itself. Buddy Ebsen was the original tin Man.
He also suffered from life threatening respiratory failure that changed
the trajectory of his career. So Ebsen, originally cast for
the tin Man part, was hospitalized due to near fatal
allergic reactions to aluminum dust makeup. When production began, the
makeup department was still experimenting with how to achieve this
like metallic chine that they wanted for his skin. For Ebsin,
they chose a dangerous method, coating his face and hands
with white grease paint and then dusting him with pure
aluminum powder. Ingesting aluminum powder can lead to gastro intestinal irritation, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,
and even gastro intestinal bleeding, and in some cases this
can be fatal. Well after nine days of filming, Ebsen
began ex experiencing severe cramping in his hands and feet,
followed by a terrifying inability to breathe. He was rushed
to the hospital and placed in an iron lung, which
is essentially like a mechanical respirator, just to keep him alive.
The fine aluminum dust had coated his lungs like paint,
preventing oxygen from reaching his bloodstream. He had essentially suffered
a systematic clogging of his respiratory system and a severe
allergic reaction to the metal. While Ebsen fought for his
life in the hospital bed, MGM stayed focused on their
bottom line for the movie, because you know, money actually
means a lot more than your actors' lives.
Speaker 3: Producer Louis B.
Speaker 2: Mayer reportedly didn't believe Ebsen was as sick as he
claimed to be, and when it became clear that Ebsen
would need weeks to recover, the studio simply recasts the
role to Jack Hayley. They did not have time for
Ebsen to get better and to come back. Oddly enough,
Ebsen's voice actually remained in the finished nineteen thirty nine
film because the songs had already been recorded. The version
of We're Off to see the Wizard you hear as
the trio heads down the Yellow Brick Road, features Ebsen's voice,
not Jack Hayley's, because again they wanted to save money. Also,
as most people already know, the famous poppy field scene
with falling like snow is actually one hundred percent industrial
grade crisotile asbestos. This was a common Hollywood substitute for
snow at the time, but the cast breathed it in
for hours and just for a little background. They did
know that asbestos was harmful in the nineteen twenties, they
knew significantly that it was leading to lung cancer in
the forties and fifties, So nineteen thirty nine they know
asbestos is not good for you, and they're still using
it as snow. We were all told as kids that
you see a munchkin hanging in the background as Dorothy,
the tin Man, and the Scarecrow all walk down the
yellow brick road before they have met up with the Lion,
and then us as kids, we go back we will
the Wizard of Oz movie just to see this munchkin
hanging in the background. This is about forty eight minutes
into the movie. Since then, this narrative has been officially debunked,
stating that it was actually just a bird brought in
from the zoo to roam the set like just a
roam free inside on the set to.
Speaker 3: Give it a more magical feel.
Speaker 2: Nevertheless, they have since edited out the silhouette because of
these rumors, and of course I am inclined to believe
that the rumors are true because of the lengths that
they have gone to to debunk the rumors and then
remove the silhouette. I guess we'll never actually know unless
the family comes forward if a munchkin did actually hang
himself on the set of The Wizard of Oz. The
production of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz are separated
by eighty five years, yet they seem to share a
spiritual DNA of extreme risk and logistical impossibility. Both film
projects represent moments where Hollywood attempted something so massive it
threatened to collapse under its own weight. For the impossible,
we have to remember that The Wizard of Oz was
filmed during the Great Depression, yet despite the economy, internal
memos and studio logs confirm a staggering two point seven
seven million dollar budget. The parent company of MGM Low's Inc.
Had even considered shutting down production due to the night
mirrorsh costs, and slow pace. For reference, two point seven
seven million dollars in nineteen thirty nine is equivalent to
sixty four point one million dollars today. Sixty four million
dollars during the Great Depression for one movie, that's crazy.
As for Wicked, Universal Pictures and producer Mark Platt officially
announced the film in twenty twelve, so for over a
decade it was labeled a cursed project in development hell
it faced skepticism over how to adapt a three hour
stage musical into a viable block. Both films also pushed
the boundaries of what was physically possible. While The Wizard
of Oz used the Technicolor three strip process, making the
heat so unbearable the cast members fainted. Wicked's director John M.
Chew and production designer Nathan Crowley chose massive physical sets
for the set at Sky Studios Elstree. Also, they planted
nine million real tulips in the British countryside to create
munchkin Land, which honestly like I'll take nine million tulips
over one hundred degree lighting. Wicked also utilized a fifty
eight ton physical train for the Emerald City Express, blending
tactical sets with state of the art CGI. World events
and internal leadership changes also hindered both films, so The
Wizard of Oz went through five directors and Wicked started
with Stephen Daldry spending years on this project, only to
be replaced by John M.
Speaker 3: Chew twenty one.
Speaker 2: The Wizard of Oz production coincided with World War two
and COVID nineteen delayed Wicked. The director, Victor Fleming, was
pulled from the Wizard of Oz just days before completion.
About that same stage in filming for Wicked. The filming
was halted due to the twenty twenty three sag Aftra strike,
during which actors and performers protested major studios. There were
major disagreements over streaming residuals, fair pay, self taped audition rules,
and the use of AI, so studios wanted to scan
actors faces and voices for digital use, potentially without consent
or fair pay, which blackmir actually.
Speaker 3: Did an episode about this. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's in the most recent season of Blackmere. They are
literally telling you everything they're trying to do if you
watch the blackmre episodes. Ultimately, the sag Aftra strike ended
with a new contract including AI provisions requiring consent and
compensation for digital replicas. One of the most significant social
shifts in both films is the casting and portrayal of
the Munchkins. In nineteen thirty nine, MGM hired one hundred
and twenty four little people from across the country to
play the citizens of munchkin Land. While it did provide
a massive amount of work for the performers with Dwarfism,
the set was surrounded by many wild rumors of rowdy
behavior and deplorable treatment of the actors. Wicked, on the
other hand, reinvented what a munchkin is altogether in an
attempt to avoid the backlash and poor aging of The
Wizard of Oz's films characterization of its actors. Munchkins and
Wicked were no longer defined by height, but by a
specific cultural aesthetic. This look was centered around the actor
Ethan Slater, who we definitely need to talk about. Ethan
Samuel Slater was born on June second, nineteen ninety two,
in Washington, d C. To his parents, Jay Slater, a
doctor at the Food and Drug Administration, and Ellen Goldmunts,
a lawyer who tragically passed away when Ethan was only
seven years old. Ethan was raised a Jewish Conservative and
attended or Kadesh School in Silver Spring. Ethan later graduated
from Georgetown Day School in Washington, D C. And moved
on to study drama at Vassar College in New York.
He graduated from Vassar with a Bachelor of Arts degree
in drama in twenty fourteen. Shortly after Ethan began starring
in musicals such as Claudio Quest, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt, Sally,
and SpongeBob SquarePants. He earned many awards, including a Tony
Award to Outstanding Actor in a Musical, awards from the
Drama Desk Awards and the Outer Critics Circle Awards, and
the Theatre World Award for Best Performance in a Broadway
Debut in twenty eighteen. Ethan then appeared in several episodes
of television series such as Law and Order, Murphy Brown,
and The Marvelous Missus Masel. However, he returned to theater
acting in twenty nineteen until he was cast as Backwood's
Men in Wicked. In twenty eighteen. Ethan married a former
high school classmate, Lily j whom he had been dating
since twenty twelve. In August of twenty twenty two. They
had a son together, but less than a year later,
they separated and Ethan filed for divorce in July twenty
twenty three.
Speaker 3: Their divorce was officially.
Speaker 2: Finalized in September of twenty twenty four. Since the same
month he filed for divorce in July of twenty twenty three,
Ethan has been in a relationship with singer and co
star Ariana Grande, whom he met on the set of Wicked.
Ariana Grande was born on June twenty sixth, nineteen ninety three,
in Boca Raton, Florida, to Edward Butterra, the president of
Ibi Designs, Incorporated, and Joan Grande, the CEO of Diamond
Dogg Entertainment. Ariana's career began in twenty eight at the
age of fifteen, playing Charlotte in the Broadway musical Thirteen.
From twenty ten to twenty fourteen, Arianna became most famous
for her role as Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon television
series Victorious and its spinoff Sam and Katt. Her Nickelodeon
career was not at all as fun as it appeared
on screen. She later spoke out about the inappropriate behavior
of Dan Schneider, the producer who a lot of people
have talked out about. She and her co stars described
Schneider as controlling and terrifying. Arianna even stated in an
interview that looking back at the shows, she can't believe
how inappropriate the actors were made to behave and what
didn't make it on screen made it on their web page.
She said the shows were not appropriate for kids to
watch at all. Arianna then began a singing career, being
famously known for her four octave vocal range, extending into
the whistle register, which it's the highest sound the human
voice can produce. Other singers you may know who can
also hit this pitch are Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and
Axel Rose. However, on May twenty second, twenty seventeen, just
as she was becoming really famous for her singing, she
was performed at a concert in Manchester called One Love.
The concert was tragically attacked by a suicide bomber, killing
twenty two people and injuring many more. Less than a
year later, her ex boyfriend Mac Miller tragically died of
a drug overdose. His fans blamed Arianna, prompting her to
turn off comments on Instagram because they were so upset
about his death. She admitted to going through severe PTSD
and having trouble processing her trauma, and she struggled for
several years, but said her music was her healing therapy.
Speaker 3: In the summer of.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty one, Arianna had her first audition for Wicked. However,
due to a miscommunication, she prepared for both roles of
Glinda and Alphaba, actually singing Alphaba's songs before it was
clarified that she was primarily being considered for Glinda. On
November fourth, she and Cynthia Arrivo both posted a FaceTime
photo of themselves with John M. Chew, receiving news of
their role offers. In multiple interviews, Ariana described how she
had to go through an erasure process, stating quote, I
had to completely strip away the Ariana grande of it all.
I wanted to be Glinda, not a pop star playing
Glinda end quote. But in hindsight, it seems that she
had been preparing for this role for almost a decade
leading up to her audition, because in twenty eleven, Arianna
had tweeted about seeing the live musical Wicked, and she
wrote quote, loved seeing Wicked again. Amazing production. Made me
realize again how badly I want to play Glinda at
some point in my life hashtag dream role end quote.
In twenty eighteen, she performed the Wizard and I during
NBC's A Very Wicked Halloween special celebrating the musical's fifteenth anniversary.
All that to say, Ariana had already been at least
mentally preparing for this role for what seems like years
before she ever auditioned. I could imagine that kind of
pressure would be hard for anyone, and if she finally
got a chance to have her dream role, what do
you think that she would do to keep it. From
twenty twenty two to twenty twenty four, Arianna went through
a significant transformation to become Glinda. This process started with
her vocal retraining. She spent nearly six months with vocal
coach Eric Vetro every single day, shifting her technique away
from her pop and R and B sounds before she
even had her first audition for the movie. The vocal
training was designed to train her muscles in a way
that honored the original Broadway version featuring Kristin Chenowith. Arianna
described her approach to preparation as acting as if the
role was already hers way before she was cast. She
took daily acting classes tailored explicitly for the role of Glinda.
She changed her wardrobe even down to her underwear during
the audition process, based on what she thought Glinda might
wear as underwear. Something I also thought was very interesting
is that she used a very meticulous color coding system
with like sticky tabs to track Glinda's emotional states, transitions,
and traumas. Throughout the scripts to become Glinda down to
her emotional regulation. Which I'm no psychologist, but that doesn't
sound very healthy mentally to me. But I think this
is common in Hollywood, not necessarily unique to Ariana. She
appeared for five separate auditions and reportedly spent years expressing
her interest to producer Mark Platt. Platt says Arianna treated
the auditions like an Olympic event. She would arrive early
to circle the block to ensure that she was really
ready for the audition before going in. She also worked
with choreographers to develop a floaty walk, ensuring that even
her movement felt more like a bubbly high society witch
than a modern day celebrity. Core strengthening exercises helped her
maintain a perfectly upright, slightly leaning back posture, creating the
illusion that her chest was being pulled upward and making
it look like her legs were gliding rather than stepping.
She also practiced a specific technique that would keep her
weight entirely on the balls of her feet, rather than
alternating from her heel to her toe. By walking like this,
it eliminated the thud sound that you would normally get
from a regular walk and helped with the appearance of
this magical glide. Another strenuous practice she had was spending
hours a day focusing on ballet based precision. She would
focus on portabras, which means the carriage of the arms,
so her arms were rarely by her sides, they were
slightly lifted, as if she was holding a.
Speaker 3: Wand or a gown.
Speaker 2: She also used the petite alegro, a series of micro movements,
including quick, tiny adjustments of her feet, so that even
when she was like standing still, she looked as if
she was vibrating with energy. She would practice her physical
training in actual costume elements like high heels and heavy
skirts before filming ever even started to begin, so that
the weight of the clothes when they did begin filming
wohen it mess up her.
Speaker 3: Like floating illusion.
Speaker 2: She also spent weeks practicing wand choreography so the wand
would feel natural, like an extension of her arm rather
than a prop. In addition to all of this, she
worked with movement coaches to develop galindaisms. These were physical
ticks like specific head tilts, hand flutters, and hair flips
that she would practice daily until they evolved into her
own muscle memory until they evolved into arianaisms and it
gets crazy. So this intense training, both physically and vocally,
extended into Arianna's personal life and her connections on set.
I mean, like, how could it not. Filming began in
December of twenty twenty two when Arianna met Ethan Slater, who,
as we talked about earlier, was Cassa's back, a character
in the movie who was infatuated with Glinda. The official
timeline of their relationship starts in the UK, where Ariana
and Ethan became really close friends. At the beginning of filming, Ethan,
his then wife Lily, and their son even spent significant
time with Ariana on set, the three of them as
a family. Between March and May of twenty twenty three,
they were photographed sitting beside one another at the Oscar parties,
holding hands on set, and when Ethan posted a Mother's
Day tribute to his wife, they still had not even
declared divorce yet on social media. Arianna liked the post. However,
just a few months later, in July of twenty twenty three,
news broke that Arianna and her husband, Dalton Gomez had separated.
Three days later, people in TMZ com from that Arianna
and Ethan were officially dating. Then less than a week
after that, on July twenty sixth Ethan filed for divorce
from his wife, Lily.
Speaker 3: Ethan's ex wife told Page six.
Speaker 2: That Arianna was not a girl's girl and that her
family was collateral damage, which led the public to believe
that Ethan and Ariana had been having an onset affair.
The erasure process Arianna had mentioned took on this whole
new context, because then it makes you wonder, did she
brainwash herself so convincingly that she literally changed into Golinda. Therefore,
the affection from Ethan's character back became her own reality
that he was actually in love with her and they
were actually falling in love. It's possible, especially like how
do these actors get back to who they are after.
Speaker 3: They're done with their role?
Speaker 2: Like you've created this person in your body, You've turned
into this person for however long, And you hear those
about a lot of different actors, that they become the
character that they're meant to portray, and then all of
a sudden they are just expected to go back to
being Ariana Grande. Who are you when you're not the
character anymore. Arianna's journey of erasure of her own physical, vocal,
and relational attributes and personality leads us to the odd
relationship she has developed with her co star, Cynthia Rivo,
who plays Alphaba. But let's get into some of Cynthia's
history first. Cynthia Arrivo was born on January eighth, nineteen
eighty seven, in Stockwell, London, England, to Nigerian immigrant parents.
Her mother, Edith Rivo, and her father moved to the
UK from Nigeria fleeing the civil war there. Her father
disowned and abandoned Cynthia and her younger sister, Stephanie when
she was sixteen years old. She was raised primarily by
her mother, who was also working as a nurse, and
expressed many times that her mother was her biggest inspiration,
even naming her production company Edith's Daughter, in tribute to
her mother. In twenty thirteen, Cynthia played Seely in the
London production of The Color Purple. In twenty fifteen, she
reprised the role for a Broadway debut, and critics described
her voice as quote leather lungs soatin honey end quote.
The performance earned her the Triple Crown of Musical Theater
Awards at Tony, a Grammy, and a Daytime Emmy. In
twenty nineteen. She also played abolitionist Harriet Tudman in the
film Harriet, for which she earned two Academy Award nominations.
Cynthia has said that she became an actress out of
a deep seated love for performing, which was sparked by
a solo and a Nativity play at the age of five. However,
she also says she was heavily encouraged by her teachers,
driven by a desire to prove herself after her father left,
and firmly convinced that she was meant for specific roles
like the one she played as Sealy. The role of
Alphaba is one Cynthia says she wanted to play because
she felt deeply connected to the character's feelings of being
this outsider. She says she found a way to channel
her own past experiences with her father There's estrangement and
sense of being othered into the role. She has stated
that she felt the need to humanize the character, to
show her humanity, vulnerability, joy, and hope rather than just
her anger. Cynthia was one of the last people to
audition for the Wicked movie, which turned into this three
hour session that reportedly left her with a four hundred
degree fever for four days. While Arianna was focused on
mastering the illusion of floating, Cynthia was conditioning like a boxer,
waking up at two am for two hour workouts Before
going to the set. She did vocal stunt work preparing
for the physical toll of singing in the flying harness.
She would sing during long runs and bike rides to
condition her lungs to breathe differently than how she was
singing when she was just standing still. She says she
also used infrared sona blankets to deal with the bruising
on the inside caused by the heavy harnesses and stunts.
She says she relied on a therapist to manage the
emotional weight of the character. Similar to the horrific conditions
of the nineteen thirty nine set, Wicked's production required a
level of commitment that Cynthia described as torture at times.
During the production shutdown, she says she suffered a severe
illness that lasted for over a week, with a fever
so high it made her skin hurt. At the times
when she was supposed to be flying in rehearsals to
prevent from going crazy during the strike delays of the filming,
she had to consciously practice letting go of the role's
intensity because it had taken such a toll on her mentally,
which is so wild, because it's almost like she had
to practice the character so much that her body felt
like it had to really transform into.
Speaker 3: A new person.
Speaker 2: At least that's what it sounds like to me. Cynthia
and Ariana made a formal pact before filming to take
care of each other. How we don't really know what
that means means not clear, but that's their pact. Apparently
they recognize the big responsibility and knew that they couldn't
handle all the pressure from this role alone. The bond
between the women became central to their lives on set.
Co stars described Cynthia as being super productive of Ariana
acting like a big sister, or some people have described
her as like a mother figure. Some people have even
speculated that there is more than just a friendly bond
between them, based on their intense physical affection. The handholding
during press tours, all the touching, all like answering each
other's questions, finishing each other's sentences. It's very odd, but
both of them have clarified that their bond is just
this genuine and tender friendship, not a romantic one at all.
Both Ariana and Cynthia have come from very troubled pasts
and early love of performance and dedicated conditioning for their roles,
and not only do they both appear drastically changed by
their characters, but they also appear extremely bonded to one another.
The first theory about Arianna is that she subsumed her
identity to the character of Glinda to escape her own trauma.
Between the Manchester bombing and the death of mac Miller,
Arianna lived through years of public mourning and PTSD. Some
have argued that the pop star version of Ariana was
tied to so much pain that she used the erasure
process as a psychological exit from that. She was also
a Nickelodeon kid, which we need to take into account
because Lord only knows what she went through while she
was at Nickelodeon. Some people suggest that she has developed
a chameleon nature, adapting to whatever her current circumstances are.
From the intense color coding of emotions to acting as if.
These are seen as a form of disassociative acting, where
she isn't just performing, she is replacing her own personality
with this safer, bubbly fictional version to co with her
real world stresses. Another part of this theory is that
her method acting caused her to mistake Ethan Slater for
his character Bach, and since Bach is obsessed with Glinda,
some claim that Ariana's erasure of herself made her unable
to distinguish between her on screen affection and off screen reality.
As for Cynthia, there's a theory that Cynthia's history of
proving herself led to this physical toll so extreme it
bordered on sematic illness. Sematic illness or sematic symptom disorder
SSD means a person has significant distress or problems functioning
due to physical symptoms like pain, fatigue, or headache that
may or may not have a clear medical cause. And
if you remember, she has had this history of high
fevers for days after performance or distress of not being
able to perform, and she also described having pain during
the moments she was supposed to be flying in her harness,
which maybe she does just have pain I'm sure that
harness is painful, but could it have been compounding the issues.
Speaker 3: That there already were.
Speaker 2: Cynthia's performance history since she was just five years old
has been defined by high stakes excellence. Being noticed for
her performances and chosen for such a high profile role
in Wicked, combined with the must wind mentality, ultimately led
to the boxer like training for the movie. Some people
have suggested the somatic symptoms like the fevers and skin
hurting are a result of the actual character Alphaba physically
manifesting in Cynthia's body like a spiritual possession. The most
speculated theory about both Arianna and Cynthia is that they
have entered into this like covenpack. The two of them
got matching tattoos on their hands of flower and the
quote for good. They have both been super vocal in
interviews about their soulmate level friendship, and they're packed to
support each other unconditionally. Ariana has even referred to their
pact as a beautiful coven. A lot of people, especially
on TikTok and Reddit, have suggested that the women have
been changed in an occult way, believing that the roles
of the witches have a supernatural or psychological toll on
the performers who play them. There are many clips showing
them being overly protective of one another, speaking an era unison,
and whose appearances have almost merged into very similar ones.
They look alike all the time. If you look at
pictures of Ariana and Cynthia before they started filming, they
were both already pretty petite. However, the weight loss and
physical changes that both of them have gone through to
look almost weightless have had many people wondering if this
is a result of the intense training or if there
were drugs involved. Specifically, people have suggested that multiple crew
members were taking glp ones like ozembic, though this has
not been confirmed. But at just sixteen years old, Judy
Garland was fed pet pills, which were amphetamines to keep
her energy up, and then sleeping pills, which were barbituous
to make her crash sleep when she needed to, then
give her the pet pills. That way she could keep
working for seventy two hour stretches, all the while being
kept on a very strict diet of broth, black coffee,
and cigarettes. This grueling regiment was forced on her by
the studio and by her mother. Many have claimed that
this was the beginning of the cycle that started a
lifelong struggle with addiction for Garland, leading to her death
at the age of forty seven. It's believed this type
of treatment could have been happening to the Wicked cast
as well, whether it was forced or voluntarily taken. The
possibility the cast was given the modern equivalents of stimulants
or performance enhancing cocktails to keep them functioning under high
stress has been widely speculated. Many people have pointed out
that Ariana and Cynthia's hyper emotional press tours made them
both appear erratic, like frequently crying, finishing each other's sentences,
and even acting spacey, which has made people believe they
were both on mood altering drugs. There are many claims
that this curse isn't just about drugs, or even about
the Wizard of Oz filming mistreatment at all. In nineteen
thirty nine, the cast of The Wizard of Oz was
victimized by negligent chemistry and corporate greed. However, the cast
of Wicked leaned into the aesthetic of white witchcraft. Ariana
herself fueled the speculation in multiple interviews where she has
called herself a literal witch and the witchiest witch, and
mentioned that she does taroor readings onset and has had
supernatural encounters with real demons. Arianna has this long history
of interest in the supernatural, so she famously told this
story about visiting Stole Cemetery in Kansas, which is rumored
to be a gateway to Hell. Which why you had
ever visit that place, I don't know. She claimed that
she felt an overwhelming feeling of negativity and smelled sulfur,
which is often associated with demons. No shit, you literally
went to the gateway of Hell. She also claimed she
took a photo of textbook demons, but when she tried
to send it to her manager, the photo allegedly said
that the file was six hundred and sixty six megabytes
and could not be sent. You're literally messing with hell.
According to her co star Boen Yang, Arianna became the
unofficial Taro reader for the whole cast. She reportedly used
a queer tarot deck and was noted at being very
in her element, performing three card pools for her fellow
actors between takes. Yang was quoted as stating that if
Ariana ever decided to stop singing. She could do taro
for a living because she was just like so good
at it. Jeff Goldbloom, who played the Wizard, stated in
an interview that watching Arion and Cynthia perform was a spiritual,
in really religious experience, with an aura of nobility around them.
Cynthia described her an Ariana's connection as magical and that
their voices locked in perfectly from the very first time
they sang together. But my favorite thing about Wicked, which
I've not seen the new one, so I can't talk.
I can't speak to that one, but I did see
the first Wicked that came out with Arianna and Cynthia,
and my absolute favorite thing about it is that they
tried to create this the government tries to create this
false narrative, and the evil villain is actually the person
doing the right thing, and the government who's supposed to
be doing the right thing is actually the evil villain.
And they prove to you that conspiracies are true. It
was my absolute favorite part of the whole movie. I
didn't really like the movie, not really like a musical
type person, but I loved that aspect of it, and
I have been asked several times on several occasions. What
my favorite part was, and I always say that that
the government is proving conspiracies are true.
Speaker 3: It's my favorite.
Speaker 2: Whether it is nineteen thirty nine or twenty twenty five,
The Wizard of Oz or Wicked, there are many conspiracy
theories surrounding the stories and their casts. In nineteen thirty nine,
the studio treated actors like props, resulting in a masterpiece
built on real physical trauma, while the actors of Wicked
treated themselves like vessels. The production was built on emotion
and spiritual erasure. Why from the toxic copper face paint
of the past to the matching coven tattoos of the present,
The legacy of Oz proves that to create a world
so convincingly magical, the people involved had to lose a
bit of their own reality, whether through pet pills or
method acting. There is a real deep rabbit hole into
Wizard curses and Wicked conspiracies. Let me know what you
think about all of this. Is it all just part
of the cost of being in a major Hollywood film?
Could it be a result of popular GLP one drugs?
Do you think there's like this supernatural presence behind the
story of oz let me know all the comments. But
until next time, my friends, stay skeptical and I will see.
Speaker 3: You all then. Hey, friends.
Speaker 2: The rabbit Hole is an independent podcast written, hosted, and
produced by me Danny Mercy. Special thanks to Lindsay for
research and writing. If you love the podcast, please leave
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