‘Wicked: For Good’ director Jon M. Chu on breaking set pieces, casting Dorothy, and the shot Universal wasn’t allowed to see

• Warning: Major spoilers ahead for "Wicked: For Good."
• Director Jon M. Chu revealed how he got Colman Domingo involved and why he hid Dorothy's face.
• He also explains how the movie's final shot pays homage to the iconic poster of the musical.

For more than four years, "Wicked" director Jon M. Chu has lived every waking hour inside the land of Oz. He shot 2024's critical and box-office success "Wicked" simultaneously with its sequel, "Wicked: For Good," which cultivates a cinematic conclusion he hopes will live up to the beloved Broadway musical it's based on.

Crafting that conclusion required a delicate balancing act between adapting Act II of the Broadway musical and adding additional flourishes like new songs and character-building flashbacks to round out the story. "Wicked: For Good" kicks off as Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) sets out on a mission, determined to reveal the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) as a fraud. Meanwhile, Glinda (Ariana Grande) is torn between fame and her friendship with Elphaba. It all leads to the dramatic emergence of Dorothy — or at least, a silhouette of her.

Now that "Wicked: For Good" is in theaters, Chu is ready for spoiler-heavy chat about everything that went into making the smash hit, from guiding Ariana Grande's career-best performance to how a discovery in rehearsals led to one of the movie's most dramatic moments.

On making Elphaba a badass, casting Dorothy, and sliding into Colman Domingo's DMs

Business Insider: You open "Wicked: For Good" with a scene that's not in the musical: Elphaba saving animals who are building the Yellow Brick Road. What was behind that choice?

Jon M. Chu: I'm a big fan of "Batman," the Tim Burton version, so I love a cold open. I also wanted to show that the Yellow Brick Road that we think of that's so iconic actually had to be built by somebody, or some animals. That it was not just this pristine idea. That the building of it was poisoned, and that Elphaba was this badass who, on her own, had this mission to free the animals and expose the truth. 

Some main characters from "The Wizard of Oz" appear this time around, though you only show Dorothy in far shots, silhouettes, or just her feet. How tempting was it to shoot her face? 

We had opportunities to show more, and we shot some things where you could see her face, but our intention, from the beginning, was not to show her face. But was I sure of that choice? We did get options for it, but every time, it was a distraction.

The thing we went by the whole time was something from the stage show. They told us, "It's about the girls!" Whatever is happening, it's about the girls. So every time it drew us to, "What does Dorothy think?" we reminded ourselves of that.

Even though the plan was to show a limited amount of Dorothy, was it still a long audition process to cast the role?

Oh, yeah. At the auditions, we would put a sheet up, looking at the performer's silhouette. Through that, I was looking at how she could walk, but also, could I guide her in that way? The person had to have youthful energy, so we ultimately chose a dancer.

What's the dancer's name?

Bethany Weaver.

We also get a cameo from Colman Domingo. How did he come to play the Cowardly Lion?

We have this amazing team of movement actors on set playing the animals, but we always knew we would replace their voices. There was a point this past year where we were cutting the movie together and we needed the voice because it was throwing me off.

I had a bunch of names, but I kept seeing Colman on the award circuit. And I felt he would be really fun. So I DMed him. I don't even have his phone number. I DMed him on Instagram and said, "Hey Colman, I know we've met a couple of times, but there's this role of the Cowardly Lion, there's not a lot of lines, it's not a lot of money, but it could be iconic." And he was like, "Why the fuck not." So we did it.

How long did he work on the movie?

He came in for a day, and we had a lot of fun with it. I didn't know how the character would sound. It was very collaborative. I told him, "I'm not going to tell you anything, let's just do the scene." And we did it over and over until we found it.

On staging that Elphaba/Glinda fight for the big screen and his favorite set piece

The scene with Elphaba and Glinda having their spat on the Yellow Brick Road post-tornado is a highlight because it plays with the darker tone of the movie, yet it's playful enough to indicate they are still friends. How did you develop that sequence?

That is the center of our movie in terms of how difficult and how technical it was for these two women to navigate our tone. I never called the movie darker; I called it deeper. I think the power of the musical isn't the song and dance razzle-dazzle. I think, if done right, it gives you access inside their minds. You get closer and more intimate in the emotions of the characters. 

So for this moment, though there's song and dance, we had permission to get closer to them because of the journey we've taken with them to this point. So, yes, you get the nod of the tornado, the falling house, Dorothy, you get the fun of that. But if you watch Ariana Grande's face, watch when she turns, it becomes very personal to her. Nessarose was a person she knew that turned wicked that has passed away, and it might be her fault. But she can't show that. Then comes in Elphaba, and they are both mourning the loss of Nessarose. And then that transitions from a real fight to jokes.

There was a moment when I thought the fight wouldn't work in the movie. The jokes of the "farm girl" and the "house falling on you," those are all jokes in the show, but in the movie they play stronger. And then when the slap happens. We kept it all in because we came to the conclusion that the only way these two can communicate is how they did as kids, which was fighting. So even though it's a fight, it's a connecting point for them. 

What's your favorite set piece in "Wicked: For Good"? One you feel you knocked out of the park.

I think the "For Good" musical number. The restraint that both of the girls earned from both movies to be able to do "For Good," and not doing the big flashy ending, but make it so intimate. Because ultimately, what the movie is about is giving them the steering wheel, to have them earn the moment. To me, that was one of my proudest moments. We even revisit "Defying Gravity" in the middle of "For Good," which could have been a no-no — and believe me, the amount of conversations and debates to do that — but because it's coming from a place of her strength, it allows us to go there.

And then you have to get right the lead-up of Dorothy's entrance to destroy Elphaba.

I think that scene is the most emotional pivot point of the movie. The shot of Elphaba outside of the closet and Glinda in it, that was not scripted; they did that in rehearsals. I was weeping when I saw them do that. I had to figure out a way to put it in the movie.

So that comes from understanding the characters and their journey, and then us taking a bet it would work. And even when we shot it, the shot of the door between the two of them, I had to take out a wall to get the shot. The production designers were freaking out because if you take out that wall, that set, you can't shoot anymore. We couldn't come back to that set. And I was like, screw it, it's worth it. This is the moment. We had to go into the darkness, not knowing the answer. Just trusting our instincts. 

On tweaking the Wicked Witch's death scene and hiding the movie's final shot from Universal

Talk about the POV shot of Glinda inside the closet, seeing Elphaba's demise. How did you get there?

We storyboarded, but I never stick to it. It's pretty different from the storyboard. When you have Ariana and Cynthia and they are living in these characters, you have to listen to what the movie is telling you. The show does the Dorothy silhouette for the Elphaba melting, and I thought it was always brilliant. We know the melting, but to see it through a new perspective, to actually enter the closet Glinda is hiding in, it just plays the whole scene differently.

Even the close up of Dorothy's feet afterward, she looks like a villain. We actually, for a time, had her dance around. She took the broomstick and jumped around and celebrated. It was a little too much.

Was it always the plan to have the last shot of the movie be an homage to the musical's poster?

Yes. It was always the plan. I was always going to end on the whisper.

Do you know how hard it was to force Universal to never use it in any marketing material? [Laughs.] They even had a poster of it for the first movie, and I was like, "Why are we releasing this poster? We should never acknowledge the whisper. Never. Never." I wanted it to feel like we didn't care about it, then suddenly it's the last shot in "For Good." So the studio never saw that final shot. I imposed a huge thing: "Do not show this shot!" They wanted it so badly. 

That poster is one of the most brilliant posters ever made. You don't know what Glinda's saying, because they never actually do that in the musical. But it's sort of the key to friendship. That we have these secrets. And the girls got to choose what they are actually saying in the scene. I don't even know what they said.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

"Wicked: For Good" is in theaters now.