Italian
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have been holding space for the concept of “holding space.”
While being interviewed alongside their “Wicked” director Jon M. Chu for a forthcoming Variety feature, the actors reflected on their experience of being part of the funniest and most inscrutable meme to come out of awards season so far. Last month, journalist Tracy Gilchrist, interviewing Erivo and Grande for Out magazine at a “Wicked” junket, remarked that “people are taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that and feeling power in that,” which prompted Erivo to have an emotional response and Grande, in turn, to clasp one of Erivo’s fingers. Variety’s head of video Nicholas Stango asked them to reflect on the experience.
“I was surprised, because I had no idea. I hadn’t been looking that much,” Erivo reflected, on why she seemed quite so struck by Gilchrist’s comment; she was then a bit surprised to learn that the phenomenon of people holding space may not have been as widespread as Gilchrist’s question had made it seem, once Gilchrist made clear she’d seen the phenomenon a couple of times, in part due to her role as a writer in “queer media.”
“I honestly didn’t know what that meant — am I also in queer media, maybe?,” Erivo recalled. “Work! Let’s both be there.”
“I didn’t know what any part of it meant,” Grande said. “I didn’t understand the first sentence, and then I definitely didn’t understand how you responded. And I just wanted to be there. Because I knew something big was happening, and I didn’t know how to be there.”
“After a while, I didn’t know how to be there,” Erivo added.
As for the much-remarked-upon finger-grab, Grande recalled, “I’m going to grab this, because she looks like you might need something. I don’t know what the tapping was about.”
“Release of tension!,” Erivo chimed in.
For the record, Gilchrist had previously, in the wake of the interview making waves, told Variety that “‘Holding space’ is being physically, emotionally and mentally present with someone or something,” and that she’d been inspired by listening to lyrics about coming into one’s power, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, “and finding solace or inspiration.”
That didn’t quite come through in the moment, though Grande made a point, during the interview, of praising Gilchrist, saying, “She’s also an amazing interviewer and a lovely person. That goes without saying.” And the clip’s virality provided both fun and a sense of completion for the stars: “I feel really relieved that the world had the same experience with this moment that I did, because I felt like, ‘Oh, I’m not broken,’” Grande said.
“I love that it’s become vernacular now, which is really fun,” Erivo said. “I want a T-shirt with ‘holding space’ on it,” Erivo said, to which Grande, via one of social media’s most ubiquitous content creators and commentators, had a prompt reply.
“That’s when you knew it was something — when the next day, Evan Ross Katz texted me and was like ‘Do you want this shirt? I got two for you,’” Grande concluded. “It’s on its way, thanks to Evan.”
