Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning hilariously recreate ‘holding space’ meme from viral interview about Wicked
Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning have recreated the “holding space” meme, which first went viral during Ariana Grande and Cynthia Ervio’s previous interview about Wicked.
Fanning and Chalamet shared the hilarious moment during a recent interview with Out reporter Tracy E Gilchrist, who made headlines last month for her comments to Erivo about one of Wicked’s hit songs, “Defying Gravity.”
In the initially bizarre interview, Gilchrist mentioned how she’d seen people in “queer media” taking the lyrics of the song and “really holding space with that.” Ervio responded that while she didn’t know this was happening, this was what she wanted. Grande then wrapped her hand around and tapped her friend’s finger.
During her recent conversation with Fanning and Chalamet — who are the stars of the new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown — Gilchrist referred to her now iconic meme.
“First, I just want to let you know I’m holding space for you,” she said during her interview for The Advocate.
“Thank you,” Fanning responded. “I’m starstruck seeing you.”
Chalamet agreed and said he was “starstruck” when meeting Gilchrist.
The two actors then recreated the iconic moment between Grande and Erivo, with Chalamet holding out his finger and Fanning wrapping her fingers around it.
Gilchrist responded by laughing hysterically at Fanning and Chalamet’s bit. The Wonka star also reiterated his sentiments about the interview.
“It’s an honor talking to you,” he told the reporter. The Roads Not Taken star then added: “You walk in, like, ‘Tracy, Tracy, Tracy!”
Chalamet chimed in again: “I was like, holy s***. OK, this better be good.”
However, Fanning claimed that their interview won’t be as memorable as Gilchrist’s conversation with Grande and Erivo.
“There’s nothing that we can do that can trump what happened,” she said. “You know what I mean?”
Gilchrist also gushed about chatting with the two celebrities, responding: “I’m loving the energy.”
During the initial interview, Gilchrist discussed the apparent online praise about “Defying Gravity,” which Erivo said she “always wanted,” even though she hadn’t seen that herself.
“I’ve seen it on a couple posts. I don’t know how widespread. But I am in queer media, so,” the reporter said.
Shortly after this conversation went viral, fans went to X/Twitter to express how confused they were by Gilchrist’s remarks.
‘I’ve watched this like 30 times, and I still can’t parse a single thing going on here,” one person wrote at the time, while another added: “This is something I’d usually watch and chalk up me not understanding the phrase ‘holding space’ to not being queer but it brings me solace to know no one else understands it either.”
During an interview with Variety days later, alongside Wicked director Jon M Chu, Erivo and Grande addressed the confusion over that interview. Grande confessed that when she heard Gilchrist say that fans were “holding space” for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity,” she didn’t understand what was happening.
“So 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 Erivo said she “didn’t know how to be there,” during certain points of the interview, Grande explained why she grabbed her friend’s finger.
“I’m going to grab this, because I think you might need something. I don’t know what the tapping was about,” the “We Can’t Be Friends” singer said. “But that happened.”
