After giving it some additional thought, Cynthia Erivo says she wished she had a different reaction to the viral fan edit of the poster for "Wicked."
While speaking with Entertainment Tonight on the red carpet at the 2024 CFDA Fashion Awards on Monday, the actress, 37, admitted blasting the poster on social media earlier this month was a "human moment."
"I'm passionate about [the film] and I know the fans are passionate about it and I think for me it was just like a human moment of wanting to protect little Elphaba, and it was like a human moment," she told the publication. "I probably should have called my friends, but it's fine."
In case you missed it, Erivo -- who stars as the green-skinned Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, in the Jon M. Chu-directed musical -- shared a photo of the modified poster along with some pointed words on her Instagram story earlier this month.
"This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posing the question 'is your ***** green,'" Erivo captioned her Oct. 16 post alongside the fan-made poster. "None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us."
The fan-altered poster attempted to mimic the original promo art for the 2003 Broadway musical by lowering Elphaba's witch hat to partially cover Erivo's eyes and face, which Erivo deemed "degrading."
"The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION," the actress added in her initial post. "I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer ... because, without words we communicate with our eyes."
In a separate Instagram story post, Erivo reshared the film's official poster, writing, "Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette [sic]."
Just days after Erivo slammed the altered poster, her "Wicked" co-star Ariana Grande addressed the controversy.
"I think it's very complicated because I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes, but I think it's just kind of such a massive adjustment period," Grande said while speaking to Variety at the Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles on Oct. 19. "This is something that is so much bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits."
When asked if she thinks fans can go "too far," Grande replied, "I think so. And I have so much respect for my sister, Cynthia, and I love her so much."
She added, "It's just a big adjustment period. It's so much stimulation about something that's so much bigger than us."
"Wicked" hits theaters Nov. 27. The film's second part releases Nov. 26, 2025.
