Two views of Cynthia Erivo from two designs for the poster for the film of "Wicked." Left is the official poster; right is fan-based graphic intended to more resemble the Broadway show's poster illustration.

Oct 17

Don't Erase My Face! Angry Cynthia Erivo Lashes Out at Fan Fixing 'Wicked' Movie Poster

READ TIME: 3 MIN.

Cynthia Erivo is one unhappy "Wicked" star. The Wrap reports her issues began on Tuesday when "a TikTok user under the name Ferlozar posted a video with on-screen text reading 'Fixing the Wicked movie poster,' alongside a caption of 'much better.' The footage itself showed the user taking advantage of Photoshop tools to make the Universal film poster more closely resemble the original poster that was used for the musical's Playbills.

In the edited image, Erivo's eyes and much of her mouth are darkened to more resemble the Broadway graphic. "Her lips are edited to be red and her eyes are hidden under the brim of her hat. Noticeably, the video does not include an edit to Grande's outfit or hair, which in the original poster, is all white," writes the Wrap.

The graphic quickly went viral with some 7 million TikTok views. Erivo took notice when it was reposted on Instagram.

Cynthia Erivo's response to the fan-based "Wicked" poster that she includes in her post.
Source: Instagram Stories

"This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful Ai [sic] of us fighting, equal to people posing the question 'is your ***** green,'" Erivo wrote in a post to her story. "None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us."

She went on to point that the original poster was an illustration not based on real actors, adding that the movie poster purposively shows her face. "I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer ...because without words we communicate with our eyes," she said.

"Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful."

The original design of the poster for the film of "Wicked"

In addition to the poster, Erivo called out the viral AI-created video that featured the poster morphing into a fight between the two stars/characters. The actor also criticized the infamous "is your p–- green?" memes that have long circulated around the musical.

As of this writing, Erivo's costar Ariana Grande had not publicly addressed the new poster. Both actresses are top-billed inJon M. Chu's adaptation of the Tony-winning musical that comes to theaters Nov. 22.

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