“Wicked” shows no signs of slowing down.
The movie musical adaption of the hit 2004 Broadway musical just snagged four Golden Globe nominations on Monday morning. The tale of enduring friendship between a young Elphaba (Cynthia Eviro) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) has garnered two nominations for its star Erivo and supporting actress Grande. “Wicked” was also nominated for best musical or comedy and in the cinematic and box achievement category. But one name notably left off the nominations list was supporting actor Jonathan Bailey, who was submitted for his role as the swoon-worthy Prince Fiyero but was overlooked for actors in the category like Jeremy Strong (“The Apprentice”) and Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain.”)
When Fiyero is first introduced, the air in “Wicked” feels charged and unpredictable.
You may know Bailey for his buzzy performances as the tortured rake Anthony Bridgteron in the Netflix smash hit “Bridgteron.” Or in the Showtime miniseries “Fellow Travelers” which focused on the queer romance between Washington political staffers Hawk Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Bailey) in the height of 1950s McCarthyism through the 1980s AIDS epidemic. The portrayal earned him an Emmy nomination last year and a Critics Choice win this year.
But the British actor has dazzled audiences once more with his version of Fiyero in “Wicked,” in which he easily dances, sings and acts his way across the big screen.
Bailey’s onscreen magnetism may have something to do with his traditional theatre training in his native country the U.K. At a young age, Bailey was an actor in the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared in West End productions like “Les Misérables.” Since then, the actor has been in productions like “Othello,” “King Lear,” and “The Last Five Years” and even won a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in the West End revival of “Company.” But that’s not all — Bailey plans to return to the stage in 2025 to star in Shakespeare’s “Richard II” in London.
While Bailey was learning choreography for the “Dancing Through Life” number, the actor also juggled shooting his lead roles in “Bridgerton” and “Fellow Travelers.”
This background in theater has given him practice with projecting his personality and why he is so charismatic onscreen. When Fiyero is first introduced, the air in “Wicked” feels charged and unpredictable. The audience isn’t sure if he’s about to be a typical suave heartbreaker. But with Bailey’s characters, there’s always something more under the shiny, beautiful surface.
That something more explodes in musical numbers like “Dancing Through Life” where the triple threat flies off walls and dances on books, charming Glinda and Shiz University’s students — well, except the notoriously hard-to-crack Elphaba. (Later in the movie, he shows glimmers of his vulnerability and unintentionally wins over Elphaba.)
Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero in “Wicked” (Universal Studios)In the PG-rated movie, Bailey nevertheless oozes sex appeal in “Dancing Through Life” as he stares down Glinda and intimately dances with her. He breaks all the rules while swinging on ladders and climbing up walls – while continuing to look good the whole time. Bailey told the Today Show that it took “over a week to shoot the whole sequence. So you work as hard as you can. You train as hard as you can with the choreographer and the singing teachers so you can then sustain that for 10 days.”
While Bailey was learning choreography for the “Dancing Through Life” number, the actor also juggled shooting his lead roles in “Bridgerton” and “Fellow Travelers.” He told The Hollywood Reporter, “I think it was 32 days in a row where I didn’t have one day off. And I flew back and forth four times. I’d go from Hawk’s house in the ’60s at the cabin [in ‘Fellow Travelers’], go straight to the airport, sleep on the plane, go straight to a regency ball, sleep there, then go straight to ‘Wicked’ to be learning choreography.”
This isn’t an easy feat for some actors but each of Bailey’s performances is so starkly singular from the other that audiences would have no idea they were filmed within the same time frame. Bailey’s multi-faceted and versatile skills have garnered him praise from audiences, his first ever entry on the Billboard Hot 100 for “Dancing Through Life” and he also is set to star in the blockbuster film series, “Jurassic World Rebirth” alongside Scarlett Johansson in July 2025. Maybe all of Bailey’s hard work and dedication should have been enough to snag him a Golden Globe nomination this year. But even without that recognition, Bailey has captured our hearts in whatever time period, love story or dance number he masterfully gallivants into without a worry. The truth is we’d all watch Bailey do anything on our screens.
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