What is this feeling? Excitement – unadulturated excitement. Since the “Wicked” film adaptation was announced back in 2016, fans have been eagerly awaiting any and all updates about the movie musicals. Now, with the release set for next year, fans are starting to get peeks at the exciting adaptation’s stars as their beloved characters.
First, we saw leads Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in costume as Elphaba and Galinda, respectively, in images released via the official “Wicked” Instagram account on April 16. Now photos are revealing exactly what “Bridgerton” star Jonathan Bailey looks like as the third member of Elphaba and Galinda’s love triangle, Fiyero.
In the photos, Grande looks dreamy in a floaty pastel gown and elaborate crown, while Bailey is dressed in a signature Emerald City green uniform on the film’s set.
The “Wicked” movies – the first to release in 2024, and second in 2025 – are an adaptation of the Broadway show of the same name, which was based on Gregory Maguire’s novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.” The plot evolves the story of “The Wizard of Oz,” exploring the origins of Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West.
Grande and Erivo have shared behind-the-scenes photos previously, and spoke about how they’d formed a bond ahead of filming that’s helping them create an onscreen relationship. In a February 2022 interview with E! News, Erivo said, “Ariana and I have been meeting and chatting and talking and building our own relationship because we know that it’s a sisterhood, and we want to be ready and prepared to be there for one another. So it’s that, and [director] Jon [M. Chu] is amazing, so we’re just sort of waiting to start. We’re ready to rehearse and get into it.”
And in an April 3 Instagram post, Grande said she was “savoring every millisecond left with my Galinda (although she’ll be with me irrevocably, forever).” Continued the multihyphinate, “I am so grateful, i don’t know what to do or say… to be here in Oz where everyday is a life changing one… to be feeling, learning and growing so much at such a disarming speed… to feel so much love around me, to begin each day before the sun is up and to end after it sets… to hold my brilliant twin flame / sister Cynthia’s beautiful, green hands every day… to work in the safest, most beautiful and loving, biggest-yet-most-intimate/tiny-feeling spaces… to be lead by thee most thoughtful, brilliant, compassionate and warmest possible director on this planet, my other Ozian best friend ever Jon…”
Related: Idina Menzel Says Cynthia Erivo “Doesn’t Need My Help” to Shine as Elphaba in “Wicked”
