How Ariana Grande Helped "Wicked" Costar Bowen Yang Through a 'Worrisome' Low Point: 'Let's Get You Better'

09/16/2024 02:35 PM

The 'SNL' star said Ariana Grande was "there for me in a true way"

Ariana Grande offered her Wicked costar Bowen Yang support when she saw he needed a friend.

Yang, the Saturday Night Live star who plays Pfannee in the upcoming film adaptation of the Broadway musical, revealed in an interview withThe New Yorkerthat his pop-star costar "was there for me" when he had to fly back and forth from London to New York while filming both Wicked and SNL.

As he told The New Yorker, while producer Lorne Michaels warned him about the schedule, he still thought he could pull it off.

"I have my nootropics for focus, and I have my CBD oils for sleep. I can really overcome this," Yang, 33, said of his mindset at the time, adding, "And I didn't, and I couldn't."

"It was a gradual accumulation of idling, getting dressed up with nowhere to go, feeling like it was sanding down whatever I had preserved from the week before at SNL — whatever was left over of my psychic tolerance," he added, citing jet lag and occasionally sitting in his trailer without being called to set on some days.

While filming in London, Yang stayed at a hotel in the city's King's Cross district separate from his cast mates. "This cannot sound anything but name-droppy, but Ariana Grande was reaching out and going, 'Are you okay? Come over! Let's just watch a movie. Let's get you better,' " he recalled. "She was there for me in a true way."

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Related: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Defy Gravity at Shiz University in Expanded New Trailer for Wicked

Referring to her friend as "badass and incredible," Grande, 31, said the nature of Yang balancing both SNL and Wicked was "a little worrisome" and something she could relate to.

"I understand what it feels like to travel back and forth so often and then have to perform the next day with no time for your body or mind to figure out what's going on, and it is incredibly hard and unusual," she told The New Yorker. "So I just wanted to make sure he had an ear and a hug and the support he needed."

Yang previously raved about his friendship with Grande, who plays Glinda in the film. As he spoke with PEOPLE at the third annual Las Culturistas Culture Awards in June, he called Grande "someone who will get on your level and just someone who has such a capacity for empathy."

"I just find her to be so personal and down to earth in a way that is disarming, in a way that makes you think, 'Oh, I totally forgot about the fact that you are who you are,' " he said.

"She is — and I mean this so, so, so complimentarily — very emotional," Yang added. "She's a crier, and that's the thing that I'm most jealous of. Any time someone is a good crier like this one [friend Matt Rogers] I'm like, 'I kind of wish I had that.' "

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Related: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Have Jaw-Dropping Reactions to Seeing Their Wicked Dolls: 'Dream Come True'

Speaking with PEOPLE about his memoir Viewfinder back in July, Wicked director Jon M. Chu shared that he — along with the film's cast and crew — "got deep in there" when it came to the film.

"Because of the camera, because it's not a stage show, we get to go closer," he continues. "We get to be more intimate. We get the camera two inches from their face, so we can see when they're lying, when they're not or when they're lying to themselves. And that brings a lot of power to the show that you can't have on a stage when you have to look forward to the back of the crowd."

The movie also stars Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh and Jonathan Bailey, among others. Wicked is in theaters Nov. 27, then Part Two arrives in Nov. 21, 2025.

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