Wicked director reveals best advice: "It's about the girls, stupid”

“You know, for me, it was what Stephen Schwartz and Winnie [Holzman] and Marc Platt said to me from the very beginning, the thing that was their guiding light in doing the show was, 'It's about the girls, stupid,'" he explained in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.

"So no matter how distracting it can be to worry about the sets and the lights and the things... like that was all important, but it's not the actual reason the show works.

"It is the relationship between these two women, the nuances and them sort of scratching at truths," he continued. "That is the thing that I think is the most compelling of it all. So that was sort of my guiding light."

Of course, the main roles of Elphaba and Galinda are expertly played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in the film, and it helped that the latter in particular was a massive fan of the stage show – even if that led to a couple of minor disagreements about the right way to approach things.

“Ari is a huge fan of Wicked, so I have Bible moments that I'm like, 'You can't touch that, you can't touch that'. And she had certain ones," Chu explained. "So at one point, we had cut out [the line] 'The Wizard will see you now', because in the structure of their journey into Emerald City, it didn't quite fit into our geographical location.

"And she was like, 'You have to have that.' And she would just start writing it into the script, even though it wasn't written in the script.

"And so finally, we were led to like, 'Okay, okay, you know this, let's... we'll try to do it.' And we got Stephen Schwartz to do it. And it was like, what a beautiful moment to have. So I'm really glad we did it."

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The film has only just arrived in cinemas, but it's already clear that the film is being devoured by the fans, and Chu explained that watching the film with an audience at the European Premiere in London was a "very fulfilling" experience.

"We've worked in our own little office for so long, it felt like for years it's our little secret," he said. "The performances of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are just a revelation. And so to us, that's what it felt like. So to see people cheer and sing and cry and come out feeling empowered and excited. To me, that's like everything. That's why we do this job."

He added that he had never stopped having doubts about whether he'd made the right choices on a number of fronts, but was now "slowly letting it in" that he seems to have a major hit on his hands.

"It's been really nice," he said. "I mean, it means so much. And I can't wait for the broader public to see it, and hopefully they go see it multiple times and bring their friends and family and try to share it. That's the ultimate... to me that's the ultimate goal."

Wicked: Part One is now showing in UK cinemas.

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