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Jonathan Bailey said becoming PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive is “my greatest achievement” in a Today show interview
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“I thought I would buckle under the pressure, but actually I’m thriving. If you can’t find me it’s because I’m in hiding,” he added with a laugh
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Bailey’s newest movie Wicked: For Good is in theaters this Friday, Nov. 21
Jonathan Bailey is filing a status report on his experience as PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive.
“Everything I’ve ever done, it’s my greatest achievement,” the actor, 37, joked when Savannah Guthrie asked him about the title during a Wednesday, Nov. 19 Today show appearance.
“I take it very seriously. I thought I would buckle under the pressure, but actually I’m thriving. If you can’t find me it’s because I’m in hiding,” he added with a laugh. “It’s a great honor, you know. I will say, I just think — what a time. It’s got nothing to do with the characters I play.”
Bailey was crowned this year’s Sexiest Man Alive on Nov. 3, just as he embarked on a press tour for Wicked: For Good ahead of its Nov. 21 release. On Nov. 19, that tour took him and costar Jeff Goldblum to the Today show, where Guthrie, 53, got Goldblum, 73, in on the action by displaying him on a fake magazine cover that dubbed him as “Sexiest Man Today.”
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Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey on ‘Today’ show, Nov. 19, 2025
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“I knew I had to just take the mantle, and I take it very seriously, to represent all the sexy people out there, including Mr. Goldblum, who is the O.G.,” Bailey said elsewhere in the pair’s interview. “I’m number 137— [that] was the highest I’ve ever gotten,” Goldblum joked.
Bailey and Goldblum costar with Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh and Ethan Slater in Wicked: For Good, the sequel to last year’s Wicked.
The two noted that their characters Fiyero and the Wizard of Oz don’t actually meet until the new movie, and that their first scene together marked the first time they met in real life when the movie was filming.
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Savannah Guthrie, Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey, Nov. 19, 2025
“You’d been shooting a scene with Ari and Cynthia before, and I could just hear — there was a crackle of electricity that day, and I could hear the mastery at work,” Bailey recalled of the day they first met.
Both he and Goldblum (members of the Jurassic franchise as well) said they grew close during last year’s press tour for the first installment in the two-part blockbuster musical. “They say never meet your heroes, but do if it’s Jeff Goldblum,” Bailey added.
Wicked: For Good is in theaters Nov. 21.
Read the original article on People