{"id":407638,"date":"2025-11-27T05:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T05:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/407638\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T05:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T05:25:12","slug":"jonathan-bailey-explains-fiyeros-elphaba-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/407638\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Bailey Explains Fiyero’s Elphaba Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains major spoilers from\u00a0Wicked<\/a>: For Good.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIn Wicked: For Good<\/a>, the once-carefree Fiyero has morphed into<\/a> a troubled but more principled character ready to throw away his life of comfort to defend the woman he loves.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis fit into Jonathan\u2019s Bailey take on the charismatic prince, whom he views as someone who feels restless and unloved but who has a strong sense of injustice \u2014 or, as he put it, someone with \u201ca feral mind that\u2019s centered by something meaningful, which I think I probably relate to.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBailey took on the role with only four days of rehearsal for both films, which included preparing for the big duet \u201cAs Long As You\u2019re Mine\u201d with Cynthia Erivo<\/a> as Elphaba, celebrating the moment where his character decides to choose Elphaba over his prior love interest, Glinda (played by Ariana Grande<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n\tHe spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about shooting that pivotal scene in the sequel, his take on Fiyero\u2019s transformation and how he managed shooting the film at the same time as Bridgerton<\/a> and Fellow Travelers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat did you want to bring to power ballad \u201cAs Long As You\u2019re Mine\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNostalgic vocals. The power ballad duets I grew up with in the \u201880s and \u201990s, I absolutely loved. I loved the vulnerability and the sensuality of \u201cAs Long As You\u2019re Mine.\u201d On stage, you accept that they sort of exist in a smoke and dry ice machine. It was all about these two people \u2014 just him protecting her [Elphaba] and offering himself and literally getting on his knees and just bolstering her.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn \u201cDancing Through Life,\u201d I vocally decided to riff, and be much more decadent, since Fiyero has that showmanship quality. Then in \u201cAs Long As You\u2019re Mine,\u201d it\u2019s a very clear and hopefully powered vocal to show the scaffolding he\u2019s offering her. And then, musically, she gets to flourish. Obviously, singing with Cynthia is always once in a lifetime. Well, lucky for me, it might not be.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou were shooting this at the same time as filming<\/strong> Bridgerton<\/strong> and <\/strong>Fellow Travelers.<\/strong> How did you manage that?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s such a testament to extraordinary producers across those three projects. Matt Bomer got COVID right at the beginning of Fellow Travelers, which could have meant the whole thing was gonna be [in troubled]. It was such a precious schedule that was miraculously organized.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe way I respond to stuff I know I want to do is that I can see it clearly. Especially when I spoke to [Wicked director] Jon M. Chu that first time in Belsize Park in London. I\u2019d flown over from Canada. I had filmed three days on Bridgerton and was due to fly back, and the Wicked date had slipped so it looked possible. I just knew not only what Fiyero was and what the opportunity was, but I felt like I would want to go away and do the work and then turn up and offer stuff, so that I could preserve [Cynthia and Ariana\u2019s] energy, because it was such a massive slog for them.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s crazy to think I had four days of rehearsal when everyone else had a few months, but it\u2019s amazing what you can do when you have experts around you. You have to go on instinct. You look at something and go, \u201cI know what to do with this.\u201d So I just went and milked myself to the end, and then I was like a hollow shell. But luckily, by that point, I had incredible prosthetics to hide under.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d heard that you approached Fiyero as a brilliant guy who is kind of bored, especially in the first movie.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, and even more interesting than just being bored, I immediately was like, \u201cThis guy is going from school to school. There\u2019s no sense of family. He\u2019s a Winkie prince. He\u2019s probably been sent to boarding school, been reared by nannies. Probably doesn\u2019t feel any sense of love or support.\u201d Things that are sort of reflected in Elphaba\u2019s story. As a result, he has no attention and no patience, and finds systems tedious. I think that\u2019s true within the school system, but then also in the system he finds himself playing a huge part in in terms of power in Oz. But he\u2019s innately very kind. And I think that kindness is what powers him through when he sees the ease by which Madame Morrible can turn and vilify Elphaba and create a character for her that the populace immediately take on. He has a very strong sense of injustice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead of bored, it\u2019s more like he\u2019s chaotic and I think he just feels unloved. I think he finds love in this story. And that\u2019s also reflected in his relationship to Glinda, which is a perceived sense of what love should be, and the idea of a perfect union by other standards. He\u2019s got a feral mind that\u2019s centered by something meaningful, which I think I probably relate to.<\/p>\n

\n\tFiyero has several more serious scenes in the second film compared to the first film, where we see him untroubled and creating havoc in the song \u201cDancing Through Life.\u201d How did you approach that transition?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI saw the opportunity to really tonally shift the film, and I could understand what Jon M. Chu was setting out to do. It was entirely appealing to explore what could be perceived as a very shallow, sort of uber charisma, cool guy, but actually to think, \u201cWhat\u2019s really going on?\u201d If his needs to create anarchy, and the big \u201cDancing Through Life\u201d number is self-preservation and self-protection, then what lies beneath? How do you make the most of a very lean character in terms of, there\u2019s economy in how many times he appears in the story? How do you reflect the wider themes and the transitions that the women make in the film as well?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Elphaba meets him in the forest, that\u2019s the real beginning of the arc. I suppose I feel it\u2019s reflected in my own life, that when you wake up and when there\u2019s something entirely meaningful, things become more serious. I think romance and true love stories are entirely serious. There\u2019s a quiet power to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains major spoilers from\u00a0Wicked: For Good.] In Wicked: For Good, the once-carefree Fiyero has morphed into…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":407639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[179,3801,185,26732,171,175008,11754,67,132,68,148123],"class_list":{"0":"post-407638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ariana-grande","9":"tag-bridgerton","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-cynthia-erivo","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-fellow-travelers","14":"tag-jonathan-bailey","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-wicked-for-good"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115620002206280448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}