If becoming best friends on the set of Wicked wasn’t enough, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo now have a permanent bond from Wicked: For Good.
In an Instagram post shared on Saturday, Nov. 1, Grande, 32, wrote that she was counting down the days to the release of For Good, the sequel and continuation of 2024’s Wicked.
“Happy wicked month @wickedmovie ♡ 20 days,” Grande captioned the post, which featured a photo of herself and Erivo, 38, on set, along with a photo of their hands, which revealed they got matching “For Good” tattoos inked on their palms.
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The cast and crew of Wicked have been candid about how the popstar and the Tony winner — who play Galinda and Elphaba, respectively — have developed an extremely close bond while starring in the Broadway musical adaptation.
Director Jon M. Chu told PEOPLE on Oct. 28 that “it was one of the most beautiful friendships to watch grow.”
“These two are the two biggest voices in the world, maybe in our lifetime. They could have hated each other,” Chu, 46, said of Wicked‘s leading ladies. “There could have been insane divaship, but they always put Wicked bigger than themselves, and I think that’s a great sign of a great artist that they could immerse themselves in Elphaba and Galinda and they could find themselves within these characters.”
“And I think it only makes Elphaba and Galinda bigger than life, and we get to know them more intimately than ever,” he added. “I think that’s why it feels culturally relevant because of what they’re bringing to these characters. It made my job a lot easier.”
For the big-screen version of Wicked, Erivo and Grande stepped into roles originated by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway.
“I loved watching all of that happen. I got the front-row seats. I loved them so much,” Chu told PEOPLE. “They were family. We could have director and actor talks and we could have brother/sister talks, and so that meant the world to me.”
At a Canva Create event in April, Erivo said that singing with Grande is “really exhilarating — a little bit addictive.”
“There’s a wonderful synergy when you’re working with a person who gets it, and they can look in your eyes and know exactly what you need, when you need it, without you having to say it,” she said of her costar.
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The “vulnerability and good listening” between the two is what led to the songs being on the top of everyone’s replay lists for months, she noted.
“When your voice comes together, that means that they are listening to you and you are listening to them,” Erivo said, describing singing with Grande. “It’s got nothing to do with, ‘What do I sound like?’ It’s actually, ‘What are you doing?’”
“If you’re both doing that at the same time, anything is possible,” Erivo explained.
As for Grande, the “God Is a Woman” singer shared last year that she felt as if she was “destined” to work with Broadway star Erivo.
“I hope we learned a lot from each other, but I learned so much as a person from her,” she said during an appearance on the Podcrushed podcast in June 2024. “And she loves hard. She is a Capricorn, and she loves hard and honestly and right.”
Speaking to the nature of their respective characters, the singer said, “There’s something baked into these roles where you’re so different from one another that you never know how it can go when you’re sharing this experience in a very big way.”
“People have needs and their own creative process, and you never know — like, are we gonna be healthy?” Grande continued. “And it was just the most symbiotic, beautiful [experience].”
Wicked: For Good flies into theaters on Nov. 21. Wicked is available to purchase and stream now.