First appeared on E! online
Oh, what a celebration Jon M. Chu is having today.
The director of “Wicked” was MIA, who attended the film premiere in Los Angeles on November 9, as his wife Christine Hodge is expecting their fifth child. But just because Chu wasn’t physically in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion doesn’t mean Chu didn’t suddenly appear in the Land of Oz in spirit.
Yes, the 45-year-old made sure to attend the premiere’s livestream and dropped some comments that inevitably became very popular.
“I’m pretending to be there while my wife pushes,” he commented on Instagram Live on Nov. 9, adding, when he was mentioned on the red carpet, “Hello. I love screaming at this! Hahaha, this hospital thinks so! “
But he also made sure to keep his fans updated on his exciting activities, stating, “Shout to me in the cafeteria, aaaaaaaaaa!! I’m eating microwave pasta!!” .
From the beginning, Chu has been candid about how excited he was when the project went well, especially when he was able to cast Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good Witch and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. And the casting of Ariana in particular was a surprise.
“I didn’t want to believe she could do this,” he confessed in Vanity Fair’s November 2024 issue. “It seems too easy to say, ‘Oh, Ariana Grande.’
But, according to Chu, “every time she came, she was the most interesting person. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
The 44-year-old then reflected on the time he and the cast spent making the film, thanking Grande, Erivo and everyone else involved for their dedication.
“We all knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he told The Associated Press in September. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a film of this scale at a time when the role of film in our lives is being questioned.”
He further added, “We had to shoot for the moon.”
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