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Last month, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande created social media’s new favorite meme during an interview with journalist Tracy Gilchrist as they promoted their movie musical, Wicked. One exchange from the conversation went massively viral after Gilchrist mysteriously informed the film’s stars that fans were “holding space” for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity,” one of the musical’s most iconic songs.
Gilchrist asked Grande and Erivo if they knew that “people are taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that and feeling power in that,” which prompted an emotional response from Erivo. Neither of them seemed to know exactly how to reply, and Grande took hold of Erivo’s finger as they looked at one another.
In a new Variety feature with director Jon M. Chu, they discussed the moment and what was going on in their minds.
“I was surprised, because I had no idea. I hadn’t been looking that much,” Erivo said. At the time, Gilchrist asserted that she had seen people treating the song with reverence because she works in “queer media.”
“I honestly didn’t know what that meant—am I also in queer media, maybe?” Erivo explained. “Work! Let’s both be there.”
Grande chimed in, “I didn’t know what any part of it meant. 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 replied.
About the finger grab, Grande said, “I’m going to grab this, because she looks like you might need something. I don’t know what the tapping was about.”
Erivo then said it was simply “tension.”
Grande praised Gilchrist despite the shared confusion in the moment, saying, “She’s also an amazing interviewer and a lovely person. That goes without saying…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.’”
After the clip first went viral, Gilchrist clarified her meaning with Variety, saying, “‘Holding space’ is being physically, emotionally and mentally present with someone or something,” and that people were “finding solace or inspiration” in the song following Donald Trump’s election.