Glinda of 1939, I don’t think that’s your wand anymore.
Ariana Grande is now that girl holding the wand from the original “Wizard of Oz” film. The “Wicked” star was presented with the iconic prop on Thursday’s episode of “The Drew Barrymore Show” and was rendered speechless by the gesture.
Daytime host Drew Barrymore said the wand — wielded by Billie Burke’s Good Witch of the North in the Oscar-winning 1939 musical — had been owned by the Smithsonian before moving “to private hands.” Apparently, the show borrowed the antique to create some daytime TV magic for Grande.
“For the purposes of our sit-down, they loaned it to us,” she told Grande. “Bring out the original Glinda wand, please.”
Grande, along with her “Wicked” co-star Cynthia Erivo, has been wearing her heart on her sleeve about the film for years and notably during its press tour. She covered her face in disbelief and again got emotional as she held the lengthy, star-tipped wand. The 31-year-old singer even got up and walked offstage with it, joking that it belonged to her now.
It’s unclear if the gleaming wand presented to Grande was the original wand used in the film (to transfer the Wicked Witch’s sister’s ruby slippers to Dorothy) or if it is another wand that was used in a marketing campaign for the film.
The latter wand was crafted for publicity photos, according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which exhibited the prop along with the film’s signature ruby slippers in 2019. That wand was lent to the museum by Illinois librarian and “Wizard of Oz” super fan Randy Struthers, who purchased the studio prop from a private owner in 2017.
The “thank u, next” singer and Tony Award winner Erivo (as Elphaba) co-lead the blockbuster musical, which has grossed more than $275 million at the domestic box office and $372 million worldwide since its release last month. The Jon M. Chu movie, the first of two parts, scored the biggest opening weekend for a movie based on a Broadway play, surpassing 2012’s “Les Misérables” ($103 million).
“Wicked” is a big-screen adaption of Gregory Maguire‘s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” that served as source material for the Tony Award-winning 2003 Broadway musical starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. The original witches make cameos in the new film. The works tell the origin story of Elphaba and her friendship with Glinda long before a tornado brought Dorothy to Oz.
In an interview with Buzzfeed UK, Grande and Erivo felt validated by a journalist who, after watching the film, told them he understood why they’ve cried so much during their interviews, which have generated countless headlines and memes.
“I also have something to say about other people who have something to say about the crying,” he said. “I cried so many times last night. How can you not be crying this entire press tour?”
“You get it now, see!” Grande said.
“See! This is what we’re trying to tell everyone,” Erivo responded. “Thank you for saying that. We keep trying to say it’s not because we’re just crying out of nowhere, this experience was like a huge life-changing, crazy, emotional thing.”
“People think we need to go to an asylum! People think we need to be locked up,” added Grande.
“We have therapists!” Erivo said. “This is good. We’re just grateful, we’re just really happy.”
“This is a lot!” Grande said.