Jonathan Bailey is looking back at his school years with a mix of humour and honesty, especially when it comes to the people who once bullied him.
At the New York City premiere of Wicked: For Good on Nov. 17, the actor reflected on how those same classmates who made life difficult for him over his sexuality are now likely cheering him on from the audience.
Laughing at the irony, Bailey joked to E! News, “They’ve got their tickets for the first night of Wicked. When For Good is playing, they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, it’s so amazing because I knew him.’”
Still, the experience of being singled out when he was younger has shaped how Bailey relates to the story at the heart of Wicked.
For him, the themes of identity and being seen as “other” are far more than fantasy. He said the story reflects something deeply universal: the feeling of not fitting into expectations and learning to embrace who you are.
“It’s that extraordinary thing,” he shared. “It’s a very real and true story for everyone who is deemed other or doesn’t fall into a typical understanding. And that is what Wicked is about. It’s about otherness and it’s about identity and the power of that.”
Bailey also took a moment to honour his younger self, and even a younger version of the reported, saying, “I just know that little us would have loved seeing us now doing this.”
His own journey helped him connect more deeply with Fiyero, a role he said turned out to be “far more serious” than he first imagined.
He explained that Fiyero’s carefree attitude early on feels very human, reflecting how many people move through their youth “careless and mindless and brainless,” sometimes using that behaviour as a shield.
Meeting Elphaba changes everything for the character.
Bailey said she’s someone “who's calling out injustice and sees the world in a far more kind and rooted way,” which forces Fiyero to grow and make space for a “quiet rebellion in the second film.”
With Wicked heading to the big screen and Bailey stepping into one of its most beloved roles, he’s not looking back with resentment, just perspective.
And as he continues down his own Yellow Brick Road, it seems even the memories of school bullies can’t dim the pride he feels in the journey that got him here.
