Words: Zak Maoui
Ethan Slater is sitting in his sunny New York apartment as he logs on to Zoom. “I can see you, but I can’t hear you, can you hear me?,” the Wicked actor says laughing, bewildered by what is going on, as a pair of wired headphones dangle limply from his ears. Panic comes across his gentle face. Maybe he’s been in Oz too long, and has forgotten how to use Zoom. A possibility! “I don’t understand! Let me log off and log back in, this is confusing me! I’m sorry!”
Attempt two and we’re good to go. We say our hellos, laugh about what just happened and get on with our chat, which is taking place a couple of days after the London-based European Wicked premiere. Slater, although he doesn’t seem it, must be exhausted. He’s been on a whistle stop pink and green tour around the world. Los Angeles, Sydney, New York, London. You name the city, the Wicked Bullet Train (figuratively speaking, but also not unfathomable considering the apparent global marketing budget for the film) parked up and its glittering cast disembarked there. “It has felt like a totally new thing,” he tells me sweetly, as I ask him how it felt going on a proper press tour to promote the biggest film in the world right now. “But a very good new thing,” the 32-year-old beams.
It's almost like the calm before the storm that carries Dorothy to Oz in the OG film. Wicked is set for release the next day in the UK and beyond. At the time of writing this interview, Wicked has garnered $164.2 million worldwide sales in the first weekend. To put that into perspective, Les Miserables starring Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe et al, scooped $103 million. Wicked has, in two days, become the biggest selling musical in history, breaking a further 16 records. “I never saw it getting this big,” Slater says, as we discuss the inevitable popularity of the film. It has been compared to Barbie in its grandiose nature, but the phenomena and excitement of it is comparable only to that of the Harry Potter franchise. “On the one hand I guess there was an inkling, as Wicked is a titan of theatre, and I just hoped they’d do it right. But I don’t think there’s any way of conceptualising anything you work on having this big of an impact, even without it coming out yet. Its size and scale is unfathomable.”
Two days before our call he took to the very green carpet at the Wicked premiere on London’s very wet Southbank. It was pretty manic. Fans were on bridges trying to catch a glimpse of the starry cast, chants of “Ariana Grande” filling in the air. “I said to Jeff a few months ago, ‘oh you’ve been through something like this before, what should I expect’ and he just went ‘oh I don’t know’, and I don’t know if that was real, or he was just being a sweet guy, but that made me feel better,” Slater reveals. “If Jeff Goldblum is also learning how to deal with the madness of this day by day, and it’s all new for him, then maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be,” he ponders.
Slater joins a stellar cast for director Jon M. Chu’s big screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, which stands as a prequel to the beloved The Wizard of Oz. Ariana Grande plays Glinda the good witch, with Cynthia Erivo opposite her as Elphaba the green-skinned protagonist. Goldblum is the Wizard, while Michelle Yeoh portrays Madame Morrible of fictional Shiz University in the Land of Oz. Jonathan Bailey traded in the Bridgerton garb for slightly more flamboyant dressing for the role of Fiyero. And Slater plays a lovestruck Munchkin named Boq, who has an unrequited love for Grande’s Glinda.
Slater’s journey to becoming Boq for millions of viewers around the world started early. “I was already aware that Ari and Cynthia got the lead roles,” the Maryland-born actor says, discussing the audition process. “Over a year before I got cast I was sitting in a coffee shop with my sister who is a huge Wicked fan, and I pulled up Twitter while she was getting our drinks and saw the casting. I remember turning to her and saying ‘this is brilliant, this is fucking perfect.’ I’d seen Cynthia in The Colour Purple and of course I knew who Ariana was. It was inspired. And to be honest it’s cool to be proven right.”
Casting for the lead roles, naturally, came first for Chu and his team. Wicked premiered at the Gershwin theatre in October 2003, with Kristin Chenoweth, the actress who inspired Schwartz when composing the original score, who joined the project as Glinda, and Idina Menzel, straight out of the musical Rent, who took on Elphaba. They soon owned two of the most famous roles in Broadway history. “I don’t really remember thinking about it, and I remember rumours were swirling around forever, especially in the Broadway community,” Slater says of the film’s adaptation. “People are always saying ‘oh did you hear they’re making a movie of this one and they’ve got her to direct this one.’ It’s like fan casting what could happen in the future, and I never put too much weight into any of that.”
Boq was always the character that Slater, who studied politics and drama at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, was going to go for. “I saw Wicked in 2004 when it first came out with high school class,” he shares. “We took a day trip to see it and I remember singing the songs on the way back. I only connected these dots a couple of days ago, but the reason we went to see it was because the fifth and sixth graders did the Wizard of Oz that year, and I was the Wizard.” A couple of years later, Slater decided to audition for the role of Boq on Broadway, despite having no musical experience on a big stage. “A few years later I had seen the production quite a few times and I’d auditioned for Bok, but didn’t get it,” he says, shyly. “I remember being really proud of myself and I have emails from my friend asking how the final call back went and I’m like “yeah I didn’t get” it but ‘I think I made some fans in the room.’”
But where the irony lies, is that, those people who said no to him then, are the people who have said yes this time round in 2024. “It’s the same casting office that did the movie, but they didn’t remember that I’d auditioned 10 years ago and I had to remind them,” he laughs. “It was quite funny.” He has an idea about why he didn’t get that initial role, and has learned from his mistake if that is true. “I was really nervous, only twenty years old, and I kept calling ‘Munchkin Land’ – Munchkin Town, and they stopped me and said ‘you’re doing great but you keep saying ‘Munchkin Land’ and it’s a really iconic part to get right,’” Slater explains. “And then the next take I’d say “I’m not free to leave MunchkinTown.”’
But it doesn’t matter that the on-stage Boq went to someone else, and that Slater went onto to a play a Tony Award-nominated Spongebob in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, because the Boq that most people will come to know and love will be played by him. And he is definitely feeling more like him now. “Sometimes you look back and realise you’re a different person to when you were 20,” he tells me. “I am more equipped to bring myself to Boq now, than to do a carbon copy of what I’ve already seen. Boq is really well intentioned, and he’s looking for community and love. He’s a sweet guy who makes mistakes here and there. He’s a bit of a comedic relief character, a little bit poke your head in and do a bit and leave. To be honest Ariana’s character is the comedian and she’s so good at it, like unbelievable, but Boq has his moments. And also, when I was approaching the film the thing that stood out to me was how sincere Boq is, and when we get to part two that has an effect on him. He’s a try hard, and I like that.”
In order to fully understand Boq, Slater says he did all the typical things actors do before taking on roles. He watched the Broadway production again and he really tried to understand him. He “knew the character through and through.” The thing that helped the most? Being on set with Grande, Erivo et al. “I was living with hundreds of extensions in my hair, and then the hair and make-up team would accentuate that further,” he says, playing with his hair while explaining that the sheer size of the sets was unfathomable. “And then I was in the incredibly cool Shiz uniforms, and suddenly I was the character. On set every corner you turn there’s more of this magical world, and you’re just in it. It’s the kind of thing where you do the work leading up to it, and then when you’re there you just exist in it. I learned that from the other actors, Ari, Jonny Bailey and all of them, and they’re so beautifully in it. Like fully in it.”
And now Slater is fully in it. He understands that Wicked will become his life for the foreseeable future. This release is just part one of two films that bring the original Broadway musical to the big screen, and there will be another press tour in just under 12 months ahead of the November 2025 release of the second film. “There might be a new colour scheme for that one!” he laughs. “This has been a whirlwind and it has been so fun, but it feels like we’re on a summer break and then we’ll go away and then come back together for the next film,” he says, laughing. His role in Wicked will also likely determine a solid part of his life for the foreseeable too, as he met his now girlfriend Ariana Grande on set.
When asked about how he deals with the limelight being thrust down upon him as a result of the film, he remains calm. “There’s a bunch of different ways everyone is communicating and supporting one another,” he says. “It’s been a little less than a year since we stopped filming and we’re all in touch the whole time. Marisa [Bode who plays Nessarose Thropp] and I have been amping each other up to go around the world.
“The limelight thing is what it is,” he says, staring across the room and shuddering sweetly when I mention “fame”. “We might get there one day. We’re all in it doing something we love together and would love to just let the film speak for itself. We’re all theatre kids who love talking about this movie in a crazy way and so that makes it feel small and wonderful in the sea of hubbub and noise. It’s similar to what is actually going on in Wicked, which is this film about two women surrounded by lots of noise.”
While he takes a break, he’s working on his side project, Marcel on the Train, with his friend and director Marshall Pailet. Slater plays Marcel Marceau in an all Jewish cast focused on how the French mime of the titular name transported and saved dozens of Jewish children. “That’s been really interesting, and I’m loving doing it,” Slater says.
Being on stage is something that Slater doesn’t want to say goodbye to, now that he has hit the big screen (he’s also just filmed another project, and has some more television shows on the go). We discuss Heartstopper star Kit Connor, who is on Broadway at the moment, and Tom Holland who wrapped Romeo & Juliet earlier this year. “This is 100 per cent the biggest thing I’ve done,” he says. “My ideal narrative would be to keep making movies, but to be able to do a play or two every year. I really do love both and always have done.”
And the play that comes to mind? Not Wicked. He’s covered that. “I say this half seriously but I grew up on the movie The Fiddler On The Roof, and I’ve seen almost every stage version in New York,” he says, convincingly, as we come to the end of our call. “I’ve always had the thought that the lead role Tevye is played by someone in his 50s or 60s, and I would totally like to see a 38 year old play him. The character has a daughter who is 18, so why not? It’s not that mad. It’s totally possible.”
For now Slater is relishing in this little pause. Well, a slight pause. He’s got an abundance of projects on the go, and while the press tour has stopped, it’ll soon be awards season, for which Wicked is expected to sweep the board. Case in point: hours before writing this the musical picked up a record 19 nominations for the Astra Film Awards, the group formerly known as the Hollywood Critics Association.
Slater is also ready for part two to be released. He hasn’t seen it, nor does he know when he will. He only saw part one a matter of months ago - “was it a few months or a few weeks ago, I’m unsure! But yeah, I’ve seen it a few times!”. The filming for Wicked part two has ceased and he, like myself, is intrigued to see where things end up. “Everything is ready to go. I don’t know anything about post production, but yeah it’s done! I’m excited.”
Want to read more interviews? Check out an interview with actor Jay Lycurgo
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