Rewrite
In director Jon M. Chu’s return to the Land of Oz with Wicked: For Good, Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey watch as Elphaba and Fiyero find home in one another. On screen, it’s a masterclass in chemistry; off it, simply business as usual for two friends who can’t get over each other.
Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey could talk for days. They don’t need pre-written questions, talking points, or polite warm-ups. If time weren’t their rarest luxury, and it is when you’re two of Britain’s busiest actors leading one of the year’s most feverishly anticipated films while quietly preparing for whatever’s next, they’d happily lose themselves in hours of conversation.
They speak the same language: same references, same self-deprecating humour, same unshakable sense of Britishness that comes from cutting their teeth in London’s creative pocket. They finish each other’s thoughts, obsess over emotional precision, and never forget to remind one another how much they genuinely adore their friendship. It’s no coincidence, then, that they were cast to bring one of modern theatre’s most charged love stories to life.
Cynthia and Jonathan’s chemistry is, for no lack of a better word, wicked.
This November, the pair return to cinemas with Wicked: For Good, the second act of Jon M. Chu’s technicolour reimagining of The Wizard of Oz. It’s the prequel to the ruby slippers, before they hit yellow brick road, following Elphaba and Glinda on their way to becoming the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. Based on Winnie Holzman’s book, with Stephen Schwartz’s cult-loved score, Wicked has long been a Broadway rite of passage. Now, it’s a blockbuster, too.
Filmed from 2022 to 2024, part two arrives off the back of one of the most dominant press runs in recent memory. If you weren’t living under a rock last year, your feed was likely painted green and pink: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande sweeping through red carpets, riffs, and hijacking the cultural conversation with their otherworldly sisterhood. If the first film was a love letter to girlhood, identity, the messy, the magic, Wicked: For Good comes into its own. This time, destiny takes centre stage. And who better to play its leading man than national treasure and professional heart-melter, Jonathan Bailey?
On a sunlit London morning, two months before they board the Emerald Express one last time, Cynthia and Jonathan sit down with Wonderland to talk about life beyond Oz. Cynthia, fresh off Susanna White’s Prima Facie, is doing her best not to overthink the next chapter, even as her return to the stage in Kip Williams’ one-woman Dracula draws closer. Jonathan, meanwhile, is savouring the quiet after closing Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II earlier in the summer, before Bridgerton sends him hurtling back into chaos in 2026. Standing on the brink, watching the Wicked storm peak on the horizon ahead of part two, they reflect on time, friendship, and the rush of realising the climb was worth every step.
Jonathan Bailey: Can we start by saying that this must be one of your days off work, right?
Cynthia Erivo: Definitely one of my days off, yes [laughs].
JB: How are you feeling?
CE: It’s been emotional, to say the least. I feel like I don’t even know a pedestrian word for what I’ve sort of dealt and felt this week.
JB: Sometimes it’s just not in the vocabulary, right?
CE: Yeah, I don’t really have the words. We’re coming up onto the end of [filming Susanna White’s Prima Facie]. It’s all been pretty intense, but this week sort of upped the ante even more in a way that you never know until you actually get there.
JB: Obviously, having witnessed your work, so much of it exists in the brain, doesn’t it? I feel like every character and story you choose to tell has this unfathomable depth and challenge. For anyone reading this, it will soon become clear of what exactly you’re doing. But, yeah, it’s incredible to witness from quite nearby.
CE: Thank you. I feel like you have the same capacity. To be honest, I don’t think you ever choose safely. I think that’s something I’ve learned about you, you’ve consistently picked the things that might scare most people. There’s always this sort of running commentary on how special you are at having chemistry with people. But I think we’re minimising the thing you’re actually able to do, which is to find depth in each of these characters and therefore find the relationship that they have with others. And it’s really fun to be a part of that.
JB: Well, when you think about our very genial friend Jon M. Chu, and the challenge with Wicked, even though I came in a little bit later, it was so apparent very quickly that you could just keep mining. Exactly what you’re just saying. When you really dig in, it becomes about discovery. And that’s what I feel chemistry is about. It’s an alignment. And I do feel that working with you.
CE: I mean, I really loved working with you. It’s one of my favourite things to have done, and I want to keep doing it. Because there’s a lack of fear. We’re just diving in.
JB: Totally. I even think our Wonderland shoot was an exact reminder of that. Everything feels innately creative, connected.
CE: It feels like a conversation going on all the time, without any words.
JB: Like we’re two little robins in the garden, flying around and always checking in. It’s amazing when you have that alignment.
CE: I really love Fiyero and Elphaba together. They’re so made for each other and not at the same time, which is what makes them have this sort of frenetic, electric energy.
JB: I agree. Their magnetism is so strong. And actually, I think they’re spinning, aren’t they? In different ways at the beginning. And the role of Fiyero in the narrative, is really to come in and to be someone so gyroscopic. He’s developed a survival set, really trying to use charm to reflect. And yet everything he says is entirely bleak. But the activation of meeting Elphaba is one that really alarms him.
CE: Yes, they’re spinning in the opposite direction. They’re both going, technically, through the same thing, because they’re covering all the time. And so, because they are covering, I think she sees through him immediately. And that’s also the thing that alarms her. I love the idea that she has a spiel that she does immediately when she meets a person, because she believes she knows exactly what they’re thinking from the get go. But not him.
JB: And it’s ultimately disarming. And we know that when there’s a crack, something can bloom. I know when people see the second film, they’re just going to be blown away by the fact that it was shot out of sequence.
CE: Yes, totally out of sequence.
JB: I had to speak about this yesterday for about an hour, and it’s actually really hard to explain. How could you put into words the feeling of the instinctive knowledge of knowing exactly where your characters are at any point, when the arc is just so phenomenally huge? I mean, there’s probably not a bigger arc in cinematic history.
CE: I think in a way, even though these two characters are sort of iconic in their name, people may have underestimated quite how much depth they both have. I’ve really relished playing her and discovering who she is, and I found myself getting really protective of her. There is the sort of grand idea that she knows she’s different, so she has to go alone. But I think she’s also really human. And when we talk about these big ideas, of someone being really different, and being able to help other people feel really confident about themselves, and being able to own your difference, it sort of removes the human part – the work that has to be done in order to get to that place, which can sometimes be really painful and scary and hard. Which I think both of them have to do in a way, to be honest.
JB: And that’s what I’m so proud about Fiyero and Elphaba, because we get to see every step [of their relationship]. I wonder if one day there’ll be a seven minute YouTube edit, and it will be, I don’t know what song it will be, maybe Shostakovich, but you’ll just see every single step of the way these people discover each other’s beauty.
CE: What I love about them is that they don’t let each other off. They make it really hard for one another. They push each other and test each other constantly. And I love how we’ve done this duet, you really have to follow the thought process [to understand them]. You have to watch them discover each other. You have to watch them also discover what this other person has done to shift them. There’s this constant sort of like re-modelling in oneself…
JB: Yes, coming in-and-out of focus. They’re not enemies to lovers, really, but they’re, I don’t know what actually maybe supersedes a trope in terms. But, excuse the pun, they’re looking for the green light all the time.
CE: [Laughs]
JB: Can we just talk again about the fact that… you’re filming your fourth project this year?
CE: Yes, I think so. I filmed Children of Blood and Bone, I filmed a samurai movie called Karoshi, and I’m in the middle of filming Prima [Facie] now. Then we’re back on the road with [Wicked]. And I wrote a book, released an album, hosted the Tonys, sang at the Oscars. And did a whole symphony tour.
JB: The majority of times I’ve spoken to you, it would be like, seven in the morning in America, when you’ll be like, ‘Oh, I just did a red-eye because I was performing in, like, Baltimore last night’ and you’d be just going straight to rehearsals because you also did Jesus Christ Superstar, let’s not forget! Which was mind blowing.
CE: Oh my God, I did.
JB: And [knowing] your process, I know that every single one of those will have been approached with the full 100% capacity of a standard artist. And every single one of them, it’s got such a specific craft.
CE: It’s very strange, because I feel like sometimes my brain can be quite fractured because I can’t be doing more than one thing at the same time. I remember when I was at rehearsal for Jesus Christ Superstar and I needed to get ready for, I think it was a concert or something, and someone had asked me for information about it, and I said, ‘I need you to leave me alone,’ because I can’t think about the concept right now, I’m thinking about Jesus Christ Superstar.
JB: And that is because you are so completely in the pocket of every creative decision. That’s the other thing to say about your work. […] I remembered before starting the [Wicked] tour last year, you sent me your album and I was listening to it in Bali. I remember thinking, [this] is so palpably honest and connected. So I totally can understand that it’s such a talent, beyond just the craft, to be able to use your time in a way.
CE: I feel like you [approach things] with more freedom than I do, which is something I wish I could learn. There’s something so open and vast about the way you welcome the things you want. It’s really thrilling.
JB: I will tell you the thing that I really learn is, how extraordinary producers can be. I very nearly wasn’t in Wicked. But I just had a feeling after meeting Jon M. [Chu], when you were cast and Ari[ana Grande] was cast, that this was going to be a real opportunity to define the art of storytelling with song. And, because I did Wicked, it’s changed the way I see everything.
CE: I have to say, I always tried to sneak [in], because I’m not in [Wicked part one’s musical act] “Dancing Through Life”, and watch what’s going on, because I really could not understand how all of that was in your brain. I think people don’t realise how long the piece is. It’s an epic, huge number that goes on for a really long time, and you’re moving all the time. That’s a lot of choreography to remember and not easy either. And more than learning the choreography and learning the piece, is the fact that Fiyero is still all in it. Everything is meant, nothing is by accident. I don’t want to spoil it, reveal too much. But you know that the movement isn’t just movement. The movement is part of the story.
JB: It’s like an echo. And a reminder that everything in this process and with the huge task of this film, is about an opportunity. I love, and I know you do too, the sort of academic, artistic challenge [of Wicked], which is just beyond. And I know for you, it was longer, partly because you had so much more time in the beginning. But the task was huge, and every single decision you make every day, it’s also linked specifically so you can deliver [your] Elphaba.
CE: It was so crazy because I had also looked at the image of witches in time. We all think of the witch with a wart on her chin or a wart on her nose. And I was like, what does it look like when someone exaggerates a thing they’ve seen? So those freckles were sort of a gateway into what people have seen of her when she’s older. So there’s a freckle above my lip, there’s a freckle on my nose, there’s a freckle on my chin. These are beauty spots and freckles, but they have been exaggerated to become warts. It’s the little, tiny things.
JB: And that’s also evidence of what is beautiful about your creative process. And also then the ripple effect of working within a studio that gets that. It’s also that reminder, which I know we all feel deeply, to respect every iteration of Oz and Wicked as well.
CE: Absolutely.
JB: The first time I was in the same room as you, you were singing, sitting on a mattress on the floor outside of RADA. And my friend was in [this play] with you, and you sang this song, and I remember then it was like…goosebumps. Since then, our paths have been, sort of, flying around the same places. And I have witnessed so much. My goodness me, what a joy and a privilege to be able to just see your level of artistry and craft. That is something that is fascinating about a musical performance.
CE: Yes, and you don’t see it. It looks really easy.
JB: And I do think – this is me being in awe as well – knowing the work that goes into it, it should never be underestimated.
CE: I actually love the work that goes into making something feel easy. I’ve always had this weird sense of wanting to make sure that whoever’s watching can sit back and be like, ‘Oh, I can sit in this, I know this person’s taking care of me, I don’t have to worry’. And so I can go with the emotions.
JB: And that’s the bliss also of the process of preparation. I’ve got to a point now where, even though I know what the next thing will be, I sort of don’t want to even allow myself to know that I’m definitely doing it until I can swallow dive in. Even with the press tour last year, I was thinking, ‘Right, I need to learn Richard II. I’ll probably learn a monologue in LA, maybe when we go to Mexico, I’ll learn scene two.’ As if that was even possible. So I was going around the press tour with this pressure, and I’m just learning how to somehow quieten that and just trust. When you’re learning verse and language as brilliant as that, you do have to just go with it. And [then you have] two weeks [to prepare], and you just go under. It’s such a joy. And it’s so painful.
CE: You might be indirectly speaking to me right now, because that was fully my intention to take my Dracula script, and just keep reading, keep learning, and do the whole thing. But part of me is wondering, is that actually gonna happen?
JB: There was a book at school about a girl who slept with a calculator under her pillow, and she just got really good at maths. I’ve always secretly thought, even carrying a tote bag, is that enough?
CE: Is that enough? [Laughs]
JB: Can we also talk about your return to the stage, in this extraordinary – yet again – challenge. [Coming back to the theatre after your screen projects], does it feel like the end of a chapter for you?
CE: It feels like it might be the end of a book, and we start a new one, you know what I mean? Because it feels really full circle. I haven’t been back to stage for such a long time. Since 2015’s The Color Purple. The first time I really did anything that felt like a stage was Jesus Christ Superstar, and that was only three nights. So this is probably the first time I’m going back to a theatre, on stage to do a lengthy run of sorts. And I’m fucking petrified. I really am. I’m very scared. But I’m also like – I don’t know, is this sadistic of me – but I’m really excited about it as well. It’s absolutely nonsensical and insane, and I kept trying to resist it for the longest time.
JB: You just can’t escape these roles.
CE: It just wouldn’t leave me alone. And I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was like, ‘This is so crazy, this is insane.’ And then I saw the tape from the original version, which was done in Australia. And I was like, ‘Let me just wait, because there’s so much coming right now, I have Wicked coming up. I don’t know how I will get to that. I don’t know how I’ll get there. And the first movie came out, and they were still interested. We were still having conversations, and at this point, The Picture of Dorian Gray [another play by Kip Williams] had come out, and I thought, ‘This is either going to make me run in another direction or really confirm that I have to do this.’ I went to see Sarah Snook, and I was like, ‘Oh shit’.
JB: And you just slipped your fake teeth on.
CE: And that was it. I knew I was gonna do this. I knew it. I was like, ‘I don’t have a choice in this matter.’ And then I sat with Kip, and the second he opened his mouth, the second he started talking about it, I was sold.
JB: Isn’t that funny, though? When you meet these people, and you’re like, ‘I’m going wherever you go’. Few things I want to say about this. It speaks to your craft and your talent, and how far you’ve journeyed, to know that a one person show of Dracula is the only thing that can make you scared. And the other thing is the opposite of fear, [which is] also true in Wicked. The people are going to be so excited to come and see you after your extraordinary career, but particularly these last few years. For them to go and sit in the theatre with you, for an hour or two… the joy is going to be huge. Even I’m excited, but I get to speak to you. You’re a storyteller in everything you do, and now you’re going to actually be able to get the people in. My God, in the world that we live in now, to be able to speak in a room full of people, it’s the most radical act.
CE: But I felt that way about you going to do Richard II. I was like, is he mad? How is he? How are you doing this? I’m exhausted for you.
JB: You know what, my body is still reminding me every day of that. I can’t work out if it’s a bit of Scarecrow, it’s a bit of “Dancing Through Life”, or it’s a bit of performing soliloquy in the round.
CE: Well, I think it’s a bit of everything.
JB: I’m gonna be hunched over and tiny in about nine years time, and you’ll be able to pick me up and put me in your pocket and carry me around.
CE: It’s the only way to stop you from moving around [laughs]. You’re picking these pieces that are an emotional slog. They work with the heart and the mind and the soul and then on top, the body has to really give as well. Because it’s connected. I think this is your cross to bear, that the physical is deeply connected to the mental, and that what you discover in a person is not just who they are in their mind, but who they are in their body and how they carry themselves. And that is a really hard thing to do as a person. Not just carrying the DNA of someone in your mind, but carrying their physical tissue around for sometimes years. So I commend you for taking that on, because I can’t imagine what…what do they call it? The scar tissue.
JB: Well, I’ll show you my right bum cheek next time I see you [laughs]. But also, I’ve had to just take time after doing Richard II. And I’ve really enjoyed it, and it’s such a privilege to be able to. But I wonder what’s in store for you after Dracula? It might be that big holiday. But also, because we’ve sort of been flying through our careers over the years, it’s that thing of going, ‘Well, I remember really believing that maybe these opportunities wouldn’t come’. And sometimes, taking the biggest and scariest challenge feels like the only way to really pay respects to the moments when you thought this is never gonna happen exactly.
CE: I legitimately remember having a conversation with Ben Platt, during The Color Purple, and he said, ‘They’re gonna do a film of Wicked and you should play Elphaba’. I thought he was absolutely insane. I thought it was the craziest thing to have said, because I was like, ‘there’s not a chance in any world that that’s going to be mine. There’s no way I’m ever going to be asked to play this character. Thank you so much for thinking that, but that’s nonsense, and you know it.’ I really did not believe that was going to happen. So to be here, legitimately 10 years later, having completed two of these films is a mind boggling thing.
JB: We’re all shackled by the stories that we are given and told. But my God, can we both speak to this? Those narratives can be completely dismantled, thrown away and blown away. Just one commitment to work and one committed moment to another. You just never know where it’s gonna end up.
CE: Right?
JB: But what an amazing thing. It’s hard to not really try and spell it out for people who might be reading this interview, to really know that it doesn’t happen overnight.
CE: And it happens to the people who care. And it happens with the hardest kind of work that you could possibly imagine. But that work comes with such joy and pleasure, because it’s wanted and it’s meant. And it’s concentrated. And I know for you, even in the hardest of the things that you’ve done, because I feel the same way, I would do it over and over again.
JB: And we’ll do it over and over again.
CE: Absolutely.
JB: I love that Cynth.
CE: I love you Jonny, and I love that. We have to keep doing this.
JB: We’re going to, aren’t we? Priority.
CE: Yes, let me send you a voice note right now.
Photography by JUANKR
Styling by Jason Bolden
Words by Sofia Ferreira
Make-up by Joanna Simkin at The Wall Group
Nails by Shea Osei
Grooming by Ben Talbott at The Wall Group
Set Design by Kate Sutton at Maison Mardi Management
1st Photography Assistant Andrew Magurran
2nd Photography Assistant Alex José
Fashion Assistant John Mumblo
Set Design Assistant and Set Builder Roman Snow
Runner Scarlett Milroy
Videography by Jay Sentrosi
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In director Jon M. Chu’s return to the Land of Oz with Wicked: For Good, Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey watch as Elphaba and Fiyero find home in one another. On screen, it’s a masterclass in chemistry; off it, simply business as usual for two friends who can’t get over each other.
Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey could talk for days. They don’t need pre-written questions, talking points, or polite warm-ups. If time weren’t their rarest luxury, and it is when you’re two of Britain’s busiest actors leading one of the year’s most feverishly anticipated films while quietly preparing for whatever’s next, they’d happily lose themselves in hours of conversation.
They speak the same language: same references, same self-deprecating humour, same unshakable sense of Britishness that comes from cutting their teeth in London’s creative pocket. They finish each other’s thoughts, obsess over emotional precision, and never forget to remind one another how much they genuinely adore their friendship. It’s no coincidence, then, that they were cast to bring one of modern theatre’s most charged love stories to life.
Cynthia and Jonathan’s chemistry is, for no lack of a better word, wicked.
This November, the pair return to cinemas with Wicked: For Good, the second act of Jon M. Chu’s technicolour reimagining of The Wizard of Oz. It’s the prequel to the ruby slippers, before they hit yellow brick road, following Elphaba and Glinda on their way to becoming the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. Based on Winnie Holzman’s book, with Stephen Schwartz’s cult-loved score, Wicked has long been a Broadway rite of passage. Now, it’s a blockbuster, too.
Filmed from 2022 to 2024, part two arrives off the back of one of the most dominant press runs in recent memory. If you weren’t living under a rock last year, your feed was likely painted green and pink: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande sweeping through red carpets, riffs, and hijacking the cultural conversation with their otherworldly sisterhood. If the first film was a love letter to girlhood, identity, the messy, the magic, Wicked: For Good comes into its own. This time, destiny takes centre stage. And who better to play its leading man than national treasure and professional heart-melter, Jonathan Bailey?
On a sunlit London morning, two months before they board the Emerald Express one last time, Cynthia and Jonathan sit down with Wonderland to talk about life beyond Oz. Cynthia, fresh off Susanna White’s Prima Facie, is doing her best not to overthink the next chapter, even as her return to the stage in Kip Williams’ one-woman Dracula draws closer. Jonathan, meanwhile, is savouring the quiet after closing Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II earlier in the summer, before Bridgerton sends him hurtling back into chaos in 2026. Standing on the brink, watching the Wicked storm peak on the horizon ahead of part two, they reflect on time, friendship, and the rush of realising the climb was worth every step.
Jonathan Bailey: Can we start by saying that this must be one of your days off work, right?
Cynthia Erivo: Definitely one of my days off, yes [laughs].
JB: How are you feeling?
CE: It’s been emotional, to say the least. I feel like I don’t even know a pedestrian word for what I’ve sort of dealt and felt this week.
JB: Sometimes it’s just not in the vocabulary, right?
CE: Yeah, I don’t really have the words. We’re coming up onto the end of [filming Susanna White’s Prima Facie]. It’s all been pretty intense, but this week sort of upped the ante even more in a way that you never know until you actually get there.
JB: Obviously, having witnessed your work, so much of it exists in the brain, doesn’t it? I feel like every character and story you choose to tell has this unfathomable depth and challenge. For anyone reading this, it will soon become clear of what exactly you’re doing. But, yeah, it’s incredible to witness from quite nearby.
CE: Thank you. I feel like you have the same capacity. To be honest, I don’t think you ever choose safely. I think that’s something I’ve learned about you, you’ve consistently picked the things that might scare most people. There’s always this sort of running commentary on how special you are at having chemistry with people. But I think we’re minimising the thing you’re actually able to do, which is to find depth in each of these characters and therefore find the relationship that they have with others. And it’s really fun to be a part of that.
JB: Well, when you think about our very genial friend Jon M. Chu, and the challenge with Wicked, even though I came in a little bit later, it was so apparent very quickly that you could just keep mining. Exactly what you’re just saying. When you really dig in, it becomes about discovery. And that’s what I feel chemistry is about. It’s an alignment. And I do feel that working with you.
CE: I mean, I really loved working with you. It’s one of my favourite things to have done, and I want to keep doing it. Because there’s a lack of fear. We’re just diving in.
JB: Totally. I even think our Wonderland shoot was an exact reminder of that. Everything feels innately creative, connected.
CE: It feels like a conversation going on all the time, without any words.
JB: Like we’re two little robins in the garden, flying around and always checking in. It’s amazing when you have that alignment.
CE: I really love Fiyero and Elphaba together. They’re so made for each other and not at the same time, which is what makes them have this sort of frenetic, electric energy.
JB: I agree. Their magnetism is so strong. And actually, I think they’re spinning, aren’t they? In different ways at the beginning. And the role of Fiyero in the narrative, is really to come in and to be someone so gyroscopic. He’s developed a survival set, really trying to use charm to reflect. And yet everything he says is entirely bleak. But the activation of meeting Elphaba is one that really alarms him.
CE: Yes, they’re spinning in the opposite direction. They’re both going, technically, through the same thing, because they’re covering all the time. And so, because they are covering, I think she sees through him immediately. And that’s also the thing that alarms her. I love the idea that she has a spiel that she does immediately when she meets a person, because she believes she knows exactly what they’re thinking from the get go. But not him.
JB: And it’s ultimately disarming. And we know that when there’s a crack, something can bloom. I know when people see the second film, they’re just going to be blown away by the fact that it was shot out of sequence.
CE: Yes, totally out of sequence.
JB: I had to speak about this yesterday for about an hour, and it’s actually really hard to explain. How could you put into words the feeling of the instinctive knowledge of knowing exactly where your characters are at any point, when the arc is just so phenomenally huge? I mean, there’s probably not a bigger arc in cinematic history.
CE: I think in a way, even though these two characters are sort of iconic in their name, people may have underestimated quite how much depth they both have. I’ve really relished playing her and discovering who she is, and I found myself getting really protective of her. There is the sort of grand idea that she knows she’s different, so she has to go alone. But I think she’s also really human. And when we talk about these big ideas, of someone being really different, and being able to help other people feel really confident about themselves, and being able to own your difference, it sort of removes the human part – the work that has to be done in order to get to that place, which can sometimes be really painful and scary and hard. Which I think both of them have to do in a way, to be honest.
JB: And that’s what I’m so proud about Fiyero and Elphaba, because we get to see every step [of their relationship]. I wonder if one day there’ll be a seven minute YouTube edit, and it will be, I don’t know what song it will be, maybe Shostakovich, but you’ll just see every single step of the way these people discover each other’s beauty.
CE: What I love about them is that they don’t let each other off. They make it really hard for one another. They push each other and test each other constantly. And I love how we’ve done this duet, you really have to follow the thought process [to understand them]. You have to watch them discover each other. You have to watch them also discover what this other person has done to shift them. There’s this constant sort of like re-modelling in oneself…
JB: Yes, coming in-and-out of focus. They’re not enemies to lovers, really, but they’re, I don’t know what actually maybe supersedes a trope in terms. But, excuse the pun, they’re looking for the green light all the time.
CE: [Laughs]
JB: Can we just talk again about the fact that… you’re filming your fourth project this year?
CE: Yes, I think so. I filmed Children of Blood and Bone, I filmed a samurai movie called Karoshi, and I’m in the middle of filming Prima [Facie] now. Then we’re back on the road with [Wicked]. And I wrote a book, released an album, hosted the Tonys, sang at the Oscars. And did a whole symphony tour.
JB: The majority of times I’ve spoken to you, it would be like, seven in the morning in America, when you’ll be like, ‘Oh, I just did a red-eye because I was performing in, like, Baltimore last night’ and you’d be just going straight to rehearsals because you also did Jesus Christ Superstar, let’s not forget! Which was mind blowing.
CE: Oh my God, I did.
JB: And [knowing] your process, I know that every single one of those will have been approached with the full 100% capacity of a standard artist. And every single one of them, it’s got such a specific craft.
CE: It’s very strange, because I feel like sometimes my brain can be quite fractured because I can’t be doing more than one thing at the same time. I remember when I was at rehearsal for Jesus Christ Superstar and I needed to get ready for, I think it was a concert or something, and someone had asked me for information about it, and I said, ‘I need you to leave me alone,’ because I can’t think about the concept right now, I’m thinking about Jesus Christ Superstar.
JB: And that is because you are so completely in the pocket of every creative decision. That’s the other thing to say about your work. […] I remembered before starting the [Wicked] tour last year, you sent me your album and I was listening to it in Bali. I remember thinking, [this] is so palpably honest and connected. So I totally can understand that it’s such a talent, beyond just the craft, to be able to use your time in a way.
CE: I feel like you [approach things] with more freedom than I do, which is something I wish I could learn. There’s something so open and vast about the way you welcome the things you want. It’s really thrilling.
JB: I will tell you the thing that I really learn is, how extraordinary producers can be. I very nearly wasn’t in Wicked. But I just had a feeling after meeting Jon M. [Chu], when you were cast and Ari[ana Grande] was cast, that this was going to be a real opportunity to define the art of storytelling with song. And, because I did Wicked, it’s changed the way I see everything.
CE: I have to say, I always tried to sneak [in], because I’m not in [Wicked part one’s musical act] “Dancing Through Life”, and watch what’s going on, because I really could not understand how all of that was in your brain. I think people don’t realise how long the piece is. It’s an epic, huge number that goes on for a really long time, and you’re moving all the time. That’s a lot of choreography to remember and not easy either. And more than learning the choreography and learning the piece, is the fact that Fiyero is still all in it. Everything is meant, nothing is by accident. I don’t want to spoil it, reveal too much. But you know that the movement isn’t just movement. The movement is part of the story.
JB: It’s like an echo. And a reminder that everything in this process and with the huge task of this film, is about an opportunity. I love, and I know you do too, the sort of academic, artistic challenge [of Wicked], which is just beyond. And I know for you, it was longer, partly because you had so much more time in the beginning. But the task was huge, and every single decision you make every day, it’s also linked specifically so you can deliver [your] Elphaba.
CE: It was so crazy because I had also looked at the image of witches in time. We all think of the witch with a wart on her chin or a wart on her nose. And I was like, what does it look like when someone exaggerates a thing they’ve seen? So those freckles were sort of a gateway into what people have seen of her when she’s older. So there’s a freckle above my lip, there’s a freckle on my nose, there’s a freckle on my chin. These are beauty spots and freckles, but they have been exaggerated to become warts. It’s the little, tiny things.
JB: And that’s also evidence of what is beautiful about your creative process. And also then the ripple effect of working within a studio that gets that. It’s also that reminder, which I know we all feel deeply, to respect every iteration of Oz and Wicked as well.
CE: Absolutely.
JB: The first time I was in the same room as you, you were singing, sitting on a mattress on the floor outside of RADA. And my friend was in [this play] with you, and you sang this song, and I remember then it was like…goosebumps. Since then, our paths have been, sort of, flying around the same places. And I have witnessed so much. My goodness me, what a joy and a privilege to be able to just see your level of artistry and craft. That is something that is fascinating about a musical performance.
CE: Yes, and you don’t see it. It looks really easy.
JB: And I do think – this is me being in awe as well – knowing the work that goes into it, it should never be underestimated.
CE: I actually love the work that goes into making something feel easy. I’ve always had this weird sense of wanting to make sure that whoever’s watching can sit back and be like, ‘Oh, I can sit in this, I know this person’s taking care of me, I don’t have to worry’. And so I can go with the emotions.
JB: And that’s the bliss also of the process of preparation. I’ve got to a point now where, even though I know what the next thing will be, I sort of don’t want to even allow myself to know that I’m definitely doing it until I can swallow dive in. Even with the press tour last year, I was thinking, ‘Right, I need to learn Richard II. I’ll probably learn a monologue in LA, maybe when we go to Mexico, I’ll learn scene two.’ As if that was even possible. So I was going around the press tour with this pressure, and I’m just learning how to somehow quieten that and just trust. When you’re learning verse and language as brilliant as that, you do have to just go with it. And [then you have] two weeks [to prepare], and you just go under. It’s such a joy. And it’s so painful.
CE: You might be indirectly speaking to me right now, because that was fully my intention to take my Dracula script, and just keep reading, keep learning, and do the whole thing. But part of me is wondering, is that actually gonna happen?
JB: There was a book at school about a girl who slept with a calculator under her pillow, and she just got really good at maths. I’ve always secretly thought, even carrying a tote bag, is that enough?
CE: Is that enough? [Laughs]
JB: Can we also talk about your return to the stage, in this extraordinary – yet again – challenge. [Coming back to the theatre after your screen projects], does it feel like the end of a chapter for you?
CE: It feels like it might be the end of a book, and we start a new one, you know what I mean? Because it feels really full circle. I haven’t been back to stage for such a long time. Since 2015’s The Color Purple. The first time I really did anything that felt like a stage was Jesus Christ Superstar, and that was only three nights. So this is probably the first time I’m going back to a theatre, on stage to do a lengthy run of sorts. And I’m fucking petrified. I really am. I’m very scared. But I’m also like – I don’t know, is this sadistic of me – but I’m really excited about it as well. It’s absolutely nonsensical and insane, and I kept trying to resist it for the longest time.
JB: You just can’t escape these roles.
CE: It just wouldn’t leave me alone. And I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was like, ‘This is so crazy, this is insane.’ And then I saw the tape from the original version, which was done in Australia. And I was like, ‘Let me just wait, because there’s so much coming right now, I have Wicked coming up. I don’t know how I will get to that. I don’t know how I’ll get there. And the first movie came out, and they were still interested. We were still having conversations, and at this point, The Picture of Dorian Gray [another play by Kip Williams] had come out, and I thought, ‘This is either going to make me run in another direction or really confirm that I have to do this.’ I went to see Sarah Snook, and I was like, ‘Oh shit’.
JB: And you just slipped your fake teeth on.
CE: And that was it. I knew I was gonna do this. I knew it. I was like, ‘I don’t have a choice in this matter.’ And then I sat with Kip, and the second he opened his mouth, the second he started talking about it, I was sold.
JB: Isn’t that funny, though? When you meet these people, and you’re like, ‘I’m going wherever you go’. Few things I want to say about this. It speaks to your craft and your talent, and how far you’ve journeyed, to know that a one person show of Dracula is the only thing that can make you scared. And the other thing is the opposite of fear, [which is] also true in Wicked. The people are going to be so excited to come and see you after your extraordinary career, but particularly these last few years. For them to go and sit in the theatre with you, for an hour or two… the joy is going to be huge. Even I’m excited, but I get to speak to you. You’re a storyteller in everything you do, and now you’re going to actually be able to get the people in. My God, in the world that we live in now, to be able to speak in a room full of people, it’s the most radical act.
CE: But I felt that way about you going to do Richard II. I was like, is he mad? How is he? How are you doing this? I’m exhausted for you.
JB: You know what, my body is still reminding me every day of that. I can’t work out if it’s a bit of Scarecrow, it’s a bit of “Dancing Through Life”, or it’s a bit of performing soliloquy in the round.
CE: Well, I think it’s a bit of everything.
JB: I’m gonna be hunched over and tiny in about nine years time, and you’ll be able to pick me up and put me in your pocket and carry me around.
CE: It’s the only way to stop you from moving around [laughs]. You’re picking these pieces that are an emotional slog. They work with the heart and the mind and the soul and then on top, the body has to really give as well. Because it’s connected. I think this is your cross to bear, that the physical is deeply connected to the mental, and that what you discover in a person is not just who they are in their mind, but who they are in their body and how they carry themselves. And that is a really hard thing to do as a person. Not just carrying the DNA of someone in your mind, but carrying their physical tissue around for sometimes years. So I commend you for taking that on, because I can’t imagine what…what do they call it? The scar tissue.
JB: Well, I’ll show you my right bum cheek next time I see you [laughs]. But also, I’ve had to just take time after doing Richard II. And I’ve really enjoyed it, and it’s such a privilege to be able to. But I wonder what’s in store for you after Dracula? It might be that big holiday. But also, because we’ve sort of been flying through our careers over the years, it’s that thing of going, ‘Well, I remember really believing that maybe these opportunities wouldn’t come’. And sometimes, taking the biggest and scariest challenge feels like the only way to really pay respects to the moments when you thought this is never gonna happen exactly.
CE: I legitimately remember having a conversation with Ben Platt, during The Color Purple, and he said, ‘They’re gonna do a film of Wicked and you should play Elphaba’. I thought he was absolutely insane. I thought it was the craziest thing to have said, because I was like, ‘there’s not a chance in any world that that’s going to be mine. There’s no way I’m ever going to be asked to play this character. Thank you so much for thinking that, but that’s nonsense, and you know it.’ I really did not believe that was going to happen. So to be here, legitimately 10 years later, having completed two of these films is a mind boggling thing.
JB: We’re all shackled by the stories that we are given and told. But my God, can we both speak to this? Those narratives can be completely dismantled, thrown away and blown away. Just one commitment to work and one committed moment to another. You just never know where it’s gonna end up.
CE: Right?
JB: But what an amazing thing. It’s hard to not really try and spell it out for people who might be reading this interview, to really know that it doesn’t happen overnight.
CE: And it happens to the people who care. And it happens with the hardest kind of work that you could possibly imagine. But that work comes with such joy and pleasure, because it’s wanted and it’s meant. And it’s concentrated. And I know for you, even in the hardest of the things that you’ve done, because I feel the same way, I would do it over and over again.
JB: And we’ll do it over and over again.
CE: Absolutely.
JB: I love that Cynth.
CE: I love you Jonny, and I love that. We have to keep doing this.
JB: We’re going to, aren’t we? Priority.
CE: Yes, let me send you a voice note right now.
Photography by JUANKR
Styling by Jason Bolden
Words by Sofia Ferreira
Make-up by Joanna Simkin at The Wall Group
Nails by Shea Osei
Grooming by Ben Talbott at The Wall Group
Set Design by Kate Sutton at Maison Mardi Management
1st Photography Assistant Andrew Magurran
2nd Photography Assistant Alex José
Fashion Assistant John Mumblo
Set Design Assistant and Set Builder Roman Snow
Runner Scarlett Milroy
Videography by Jay Sentrosi
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