SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains major plot details for Wicked: For Good
Dana Fox knows how to tell a unique love story. Whether it be about the love between an off-kilter dalmatian-hating woman and her fabrics or, as her latest movie calls for, two women reconciling with their friendship after parting ways during a visit to the Emerald City.
In Wicked: For Good, the sequel to the onscreen musical adaptation Wicked, all good deeds must come to an end. Directed by Jon M. Chu and co-written by Fox and Winnie Holzman, the film picks up right after Elphaba’s (Cynthia Erivo) designation as the Wicked Witch of the West has been unfairly thrust upon her, as she is forced to live in exile after threatening to overthrow the Wizard. Meanwhile, Glinda (Ariana Grande) has become a mouthpiece for good in the Emerald City as she continues to sustain herself on the perks of popularity and the charms of her beauty, much to the chagrin of her fiancé Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey). As the dangers against Elphaba grow, the pair have to work through their differences to restore justice in the land of Oz.
Considering the source material pulled from Wicked’s second act in the stage musical, which runs a tight 45 minutes, Fox and Holzman had to work together to bolster the script for a longer cinematic adventure lasting two hours and 15 minutes. This vast expansion created a creative challenge and a push to add a more powerful and dynamic friendship to the women at the center, Elphaba and Glinda. “We had to create a lot of new material for this one and really dig deep into it without, in any way, upsetting the fans who seem to feel that Wicked, the play, is theirs, which is wonderful. I love that they feel that, but you have to honor that. You have to not mess with what they consider to be their Bible. You have to create new stuff in a way that makes that stuff feel supported,” Fox explained to Deadline. “Everything we did was about their friendship because the North Star of our development on the film was constantly saying, ‘It’s about the girls, stupid.’ We literally had a quote on all our computers that said that. And so, anytime we were like, ‘It’s about the animals, but how are the animals also about the girls?’ or ‘How is Fiyero about the girls?’ or ‘How is Nessa about Elphaba?’ It was always about figuring out how to make any interaction lead back to them.”
Below, Fox breaks down weaving new narratives, the ambiguous conclusion of Wicked: For Good and how she helped polish one of the most dynamic friendships in pop culture history.
DEADLINE: This has been a five-year journey for you all. How are you feeling? What’s the moment right now like for you?
DANA FOX: I’m very emotional, so it’s hard for me to parse out whether I’m emotional because Wicked: For Good itself is so emotional, or if I’m 10 times more emotional, because this was five years of my life. We spent a year very intensely writing both scripts every second of every day, and then some more time after that. This all feels really powerful, having done that with your friends. When it comes to Jon M. Chu, I’m the luckiest person in the world that he has worked with me more than once. We worked together before Wicked [on Home Before Dark], and the experience of working with him is so amazing that I told him I would do anything with him for the rest of my life. I couldn’t believe he invited me to be a part of breaking these movies with him, Stephen Schwartz and the amazing Winnie Holzman. I got to be in the room where it happens, so to speak, and it was wonderful to be in that room full of geniuses.
Every day, we came with so much hope and optimism, and with the hardest work ethic we could muster, because we cared so much about these movies. We knew how much the fans cared about it, what a profound legacy this was, how easy it was to screw it up, and how impossible it was to get it right. And we were just determined to work as hard as we could to try to get it right. So, I’m feeling very emotional because I was working with my real friends, like editor Myron Kerstein and DP Alice Brooks, who I’ve worked with before. It feels really emotional to be letting your baby go out into the world.
Wicked: For Good
Universal
DEADLINE: I’ve read you broke two scripts. Can you talk more about how you parsed through Part II?
FOX: The second movie was so difficult to break in a good way. In a challenging way, that was exciting to all of us because it’s a 45-minute second act of a play that’s designed to be the ending of a thing that you just saw. The second movie is two hours and 15 minutes long. So, we had to create a lot of new material for this one and really dig deep into it without, in any way, upsetting the fans who seem to feel that Wicked, the play, is theirs, which is wonderful. I love that they feel that, but you have to honor that. You have to not mess with what they consider to be their Bible. You have to create new stuff in a way that makes that stuff feel supported. And I think the film feels surprising because you genuinely don’t know, and if you’ve seen the play, there’s a whole lot of movie that you don’t know what’s going to happen. So, I’m excited for people to experience that.
DEADLINE: Let’s get into some of these differences. Glinda is in “Wonderful.”
FOX: I wasn’t precious about anything. I think I was the one who suggested putting Glinda in “Wonderful,” which she was never a part of in the play. So, I said, “This is a two-hour movie, and these are the stars of the movie, and they’re not in it enough together.” We’re going to die if they’re in the movie the way that they’re in it in the play. There’s no way we’re going to make it. So, I suggested the change, and there were gasps across the earth. People fell out of frame on the Zoom. But then, it was thankfully to Stephen and Winnie for being so open and so wonderful, they were like, “That’s a great idea. Let’s do that.”
And thank God they were such incredible collaborators, because I could suggest these sorts of unholy things, and they were open to them and ran with them. My takeaway from the whole project is that I will never forget my collaboration with Winnie.
DEADLINE: There’s something so powerful about Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship in Wicked: For Good that was just not quite as dynamic in the play. No shade, but in the film it’s more palpable. What were the conversations about this?
FOX: I think why you’re feeling that, and I’m glad you were feeling that, is because that’s exactly what we were focused on when we were breaking the second movie. We all know the song “For Good” is the banger. That’s the song you’re really going to care about. That’s the one that’s going to rip your heart out. And so, everything we did was to bolster their relationship before that song, so that when they sing that song, you’re feeling the absolute maximum you can be feeling. So, some of that had to do with going back to the beginning of the second movie and basically showing what their status quos were like, but in a way that, even though they weren’t together, you got a sense that they were pulled towards each other. They were still thinking about each other.
For example, like all of that cross-cutting stuff where you see Elphaba is still holding onto the things that Glinda gave her, or her thinking about when she asked Glinda to come with her to the Emerald City, all of that was an eye towards bolstering the friendship. Because if you think about it, and there’s absolutely no shade to the play, Winnie and Stephen speak of this always; they say, “We just had to be so short and summarize everything and flip it more than we wanted to.” So, for them, this was an amazing opportunity to expand. But everything we did was about their friendship because the North Star of our development on the film was constantly saying, “It’s about the girls, stupid.” We literally had a quote on all our computers that said that. And so, anytime we were like, “It’s about the animals, but how are the animals also about the girls?” or “How is Fiyero about the girls?” or “How is Nessa about Elphaba?” It was always about figuring out how to make any interaction lead back to them.
It was really about making sure that when you get to “For Good,” you feel like you’ve been on this incredibly epic journey, because actually, if you break it down, they had a light relationship. The time doesn’t give you that level of depth, so we had to make sure you felt it in the film.
DEADLINE: A scene I can’t stop thinking about is the way Glinda has to process Fiyero running away with Elphaba. At first, she’s angry and hurt, rightfully so. Then later, in that moment where Elphaba and Glinda confront each other and Fiyero runs in to save Elphaba at the cost of his own life, and he’s so desperate to save her that he puts the gun to Glinda’s face. Glinda calls him on his bluff, but this is the first time they’ve interacted since he ran away, and Glinda realizes she can’t hate Fiyero for leaving her anymore after he sees that he really loves Elphaba. And then there’s the apology Fiyero gives Glinda. There’s so much happening in the span of like five or so minutes.
FOX: I love it. The way Glinda approaches his gun and is like, “I’m calling your bluff, bro. I know you aren’t pulling the trigger,” kills me. I have to give props, though, to the extraordinary actors and to Jon in the way they sold all those moments. Ariana [Grande] is so heartbreaking in that moment. You can see what she’s thinking, and you know what she’s thinking; “I love Elphaba, and why is that complicating this situation so much for me? How come I can’t just be mad at Fiyero? Why can’t I just hate him”? And it’s because he loves Elphaba, and she realizes so does she. So, she understands what it means to love her and want to protect her, too. It’s a heartbreaking thing.
And Jonathan Bailey saying, “I’m so sorry,” a national treasure, that guy. Give him all the stuff. I love him and he’s incredible. The way he manages that apology to her, and he is so sorry that he can’t feel the feelings she wanted him to feel. Ugh.
DEADLINE: Please do not make me tear up right now. We have to get through this interview.
FOX: But wait. The other thing that kills me dead is when Elphaba gives Glinda the Grimmerie and Glinda finally says, “You know I can’t read that.” I die. To me, that performance and the fact that she says that and has that moment — that is her deepest shame. In the film, we created the scene where you see her as a child, her deep want and need, and the original wound she has, and you understand how hard it is for Glinda to say she can’t access that magic. That’s the hardest thing for her to say and admit. The fact that she admits it, to me, is why I think she earns the Grimmerie opening to her at the end of the film, which is also not in the play.
Winnie and I are desperate for all that to be open to everyone else’s interpretation. And we love how much people feel like they can find themselves in these movies, and they can figure out whether they think it means this or that. And at the end, when Elphaba smiles and you can’t tell, it’s like, did she open it for her? Does she know that it opened for her? Did she feel it opening for her? What is that? That should be everyone’s moment to decide how they want it to be and how they feel about it. I get chills just thinking about that ending, though. I love it so much.
Wicked: For Good
Universal
DEADLINE: What was a creative challenge you had to work through, but were happy that you managed to make work?
FOX: The whole thing was such a fun, creative challenge. But I think for me, personally, I’ve been in this industry a long time. There are unbelievable amounts of hard work, trauma and bleeding all over script pages every day. But I have developed a sense of what structure should feel like. And for me, structure is nothing more than a character experiencing an emotional journey. And do you feel what you are supposed to feel as an audience member as that character is experiencing that emotional journey?
So, for me, the most exciting thing was the opportunity to try to take something that was fundamentally built to be the ending, the conclusion, the experience of if you were just to make the second act into a movie, this experience of watching this movie would be so bonkers. You would sit down, and you would try to take your first bite of popcorn, and you would be in the two or three-act break of the movie on page 90, where the shit has hit the fan. And then you would bullet-train until the end of the movie, and it would be over 45 minutes later. So obviously, that’s not the feeling of watching a whole movie and having the movie stand on its own.
We were really intent on making these movies stand on their own. Basically, we said to ourselves, “We want people who have never seen the musical to like them. We want the fans to love it because they are the most important to please. We want people who have never watched any of this to show up at any one of the movies and feel like it’s a fully satisfying experience. You can watch two even if you haven’t seen one, and you can still like two.” So that was a weird, hard problem to solve, but it was a fun puzzle, and I have a puzzle brain, so I was just like, “OK, the problem here is that we have to figure out how to make the structure feel like it was always meant to be its own movie.” A lot of that was about developing the beginning and making it feel like you’re catching up with them slowly enough, but with enough momentum that when it really hits, you can just go.
There’s a lot of momentum in this movie. It’s two hours and 14 minutes, but I don’t know how you felt, but I was like, “This is fast. Oh my God, why is it jamming so hard?” It just feels really quick.
DEADLINE: It’s so fast. I was trying to figure out how Fiyero leaves his wedding, Elphaba frees the animals, and then they just go back to Elphaba’s house and try to get down to business. Can someone take a breather?
FOX: I mean, my kingdom to make an entire movie out of Fiyero’s experience because let me tell you, that’s a wild movie over there. That guy who ends up as the hottest burlap sack you’ve ever seen in your life. I’m like, “Let me tell you something.”
Wicked: For Good
Universal
DEADLINE: What does his family think happened to him? He’s a whole prince!
FOX: Right. It’s so nuts. What you’re doing here is similar to what we did. It was poking these holes and being like, does this seem bonkers that Fiyero is doing this thing in this moment? How can we show his state of mind when he talks to Glinda at the beginning of “Thank Goodness?” How can we show that yes, he’s playing the part, but he’s way more uncomfortable with the part than Glinda is when we catch up with him. He’s already been marinating on, “I’ve got to find Elphaba because if someone else does, they’re going to kill her.” He’s still thinking about her. And Glinda is still thinking about her, but she’s way more committed to this [glamorous] life because she likes the perks and isn’t willing to walk away from them.
So, we started looking at Fiyero and trying to make his journey not seem totally bonkers. And of course, Jonny Bailey is a genius, and so he made it all seem like, “Yeah, of course, it’s totally normal to do all those things in the course of one movie.”
DEADLINE: Elphaba and Glinda get these cool battle-esque moments that are new to the movie. Elphaba gets to confront the animal slavers on the yellow brick road at the beginning, and Glinda gets this battle anthem after realizing what she needs to do.
FOX: What Jon loved about that idea was that we thought we were so lucky that Universal was allowing us to have this big of a canvas for what is fundamentally a story about two women and their friendship. It’s nuts that they gave us this amount of space to make this epic because what we loved about that opening was that it set the tone for this superhero-esque movie. These women are superheroes. Elphaba is a superhero, but Glinda, you’re watching the origin story of her real superhero moment. So, when Glinda puts on that crown at the end, you could have heard a score that was emotional, slow strings. But that piece of score that happens there is killer, it’s like she’s Indiana Jones. She’s going to battle. And you just don’t get a lot of that for female characters. I love that Jon had the vision to see that, and having Universal support it was amazing.
DEADLINE: Elphaba also delivers that growling line at the Wizard, telling him to run.
FOX: That was a fun scenario to create as well. Recently, I was getting the script ready for sending it to the Academy and things like that for consideration. And I just looked at that specific section and realized, initially, something bumped for me in that moment when she said the line, “My desire is to fight you ’till the day I die,” and then she says, “Run.” And in my mind, I’m like, “Girl, he’s right there. Don’t tell him to run. Get him.” So there’s something a little odd for me about that. But then, when I was looking back at the script, and actually in the original script, she tells the animals to run because she’s trying to help the animals get away. And again, I think they used it well by having her say that to him; it feels more powerful, in some way, that she’s telling him to run because she’s going to try to kick his butt.
DEADLINE: What’s one scene on the cutting room floor that you wish could have stayed?
FOX: I don’t think there’s anything that I wish we hadn’t cut because everything we cut, I felt we cut for exactly the right reasons. There are some beautiful things I’m sure will be in the deleted scenes. Perhaps, there is a scene that I don’t know if it will be included. There was a scene between Fiyero and Glinda that we cut in which they kissed; it was romantic and beautiful, but a little too passionate. Seeing that made it too hard to watch him make the choice he makes to be with Elphaba and made it too hard to make it OK that Elphaba ran off with him. It was too real that he and Glinda were actually feeling something together.
It was like a feeling that he really did love her, which he does care about Glinda a lot, don’t get me wrong. But he likes her in a different way. But this scene was too romantic, so it was like, “Oh, we can’t know that because then our brains will explode when he doesn’t choose her in the end. And then we’ll hate Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero.” So, I think it was a good cut because it was too adorable that you simply couldn’t handle it.
Wicked: For Good
Universal
DEADLINE: We have to talk about the Broadway poster scene. It’s the last shot of the movie.
FOX: This movie is a very difficult movie to say whose idea was what, because it was all such the most beautiful collaboration, and every single person in it did so much to make it what it was. The whisper in the script was always the last moment in the many written drafts. And I’m a mushball who wanted it to have a happy ending. And everyone was like, “No, girl. It has to end the way it’s going to end.” And I was like, “But I love them, and I want them to be together.”
There was a lot of negotiating between wanting to respect the bittersweet nature of the fact that they really are not going to see each other again, and that the sacrifice has been made, and Glinda thinks she is dead for real. And so, you can’t coddle the audience into believing that’s not what really happened. But I think it was those final images that came from Winnie and my desire to have you feel that no matter what, they will always be together in their hearts, even if they can’t physically be together. That was the idea.
DEADLINE: There’s been some speculation about a Wicked 3. Do you have it in you for another film? What do you think Glinda, Fiyero and Elphaba would get up to?
FOX: Well, I would be honored if anyone asked me to be a part of Wicked 3. And I think that they are such beloved characters that seeing what they were up to, I mean, to me, the moment when Elphaba says in voiceover, “I know she can never know that we’re alive.” I was like, somebody feels like they’re asking to find out that they are alive at some point. That feels really like, “Hello.” That’s spicy to me. I love the idea that we could meet up with them again someday.
My daughter personally wants a prequel, so I do what my kids say. I’m like, “Sure, prequel sounds great,” but honestly, it would be an honor to be involved in any of it if it happened. But again, sometimes I think the best things in life are the ones you want to take care of, like they’re the most delicate treasures. And sometimes that means not stepping on what’s very, very good.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
