More than 20 years ago, Wicked debuted on Broadway and fans of the musical, based on Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West — which itself was based on L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the iconic 1939 film — have been waiting for Wicked to hit the big screen ever since. That wait comes to an end on November 22nd with Jon M. Chu directing a powerhouse cast including Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and more. But while Wicked fans are eager to see and hear the beloved story and songs in theaters, for Bailey who plays Fiyero Tigelaar in the film actually singing those songs in front of co-stars Erivo and Grande was a daunting task. Speaking with ComicBook, Bailey explained that he “completely disassociated” but he also trained extensively in order to give his all when singing with some of the best vocalists of our time.
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“I’d say I completely disassociated. I vaguely remember bits of my toupee in the foreground and Jon Chu going like that [thumbs up] in the background,” Bailey said. “You train really, really hard, obviously, knowing that Ari and Cynthia, two of the bet vocalists we have were going to be there. I knew that. I just had to go for gold and it was amazing. It was amazing. I had a facelift from the g-force of the sheer heft of their vocal prowess.”
“Eric Vitro who taught. me how to sing, from afar, on Zoom and I only met him in person two months after we finished,” he said, elaborating on his training. “And it was one of many, but an amazing collaboration. He was so sweet. And I’d go back to my trailer and he had, you know… keep the voice in check.”
[RELATED: Wicked Character Posters Released]
In Wicked, viewers follow the story of Elphaba (Erivo), a young woman misunderstood for her green skin and Glinda (Grande), a student with a desire for great popularity. The two young women and up developing an unlikely friendship, but following an encounter with the Wizard of Oz, that friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives start to take very different paths.” While fans are eager to see the story play out on screen —as well as see the musical performances — when it comes to the content of Maguire’s book on which the Wicked musical is based upon, there are some differences and, in turn, some differences from the theatrical stage to the silver screen.
“It wasn’t really about the content of the book, it was about the room of the characters that were created on the stage that I felt the audiences needed or I need,” Chu said. “To see the full realization when we were in the theater, we fill a lot in with our heads. I imagined her actually flying around us so when I went back, I [was] like, ‘oh, she doesn’t actually fly around us?’ I just wanted to fulfill those moments. And emotionally, there’s a lot of moments like what happens when they actually move into the dorm room for the first time. That’s not done in song, but what is the awkward thing and what are you revealing about the relationship? Why do they actually need to see each other in the end? To me, those were really fun elements to just sort of flesh out.”
Will There Be More Than One Wicked Movie?
While Wicked is headed into theaters in just over a week, the story isn’t a one and done. The story is actually split into two films with Wicked: Part Two scheduled to hit theaters November 21, 2026 — almost exactly one year after Wicked. For Chu, it was a matter of making sure that he was able to tell the story in a way that did it justice.
“We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one Wicked movie but two!” he said previously. “With more space, we can tell the story of Wicked as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters.”
Wicked opens in theaters on November 22nd.
