Bowen Yang has joined the cast of ‘Wicked.
The ‘Saturday Night Live’ star is among a slew of new faces unveiled for the two-part adaptation of the popular stage musical, with Marissa Bode, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle, Aaron Teoh and Colin Michael Carmichael also signing up for the project.
Marissa will be playing Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose, and like her character, the actress is a wheelchair user.
Bowen and Bronwyn will be playing classmates of Elphaba and Glinda at Shiz University, while Keala will play Miss Coddle, Aaron will portray Avaric and Colin will be Nikidik.
Their casting comes just days after it was confirmed Michelle Yeoh will play Madame Morrible, the Headmistress of Crage Hall at Shiz University who convinces Elphaba to create the flying monkeys, while she sings in the ‘The Wizard and I.’
Ethan Slater was also recently unveiled as Boq.
The Tony-nominated star – who is best known for his role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the musical of the same name – is set to play the love interest of Elphaba’s younger sister, Nessarose, however, he actually has his heart set on impressing Glinda.
The two-parter stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Glinda, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, and Jeff Goldblum as The Wizard.
Director Jon Chu decided to make the movie into two parts because it would be “impossible” to put the complex story into a single film.
He said: “Thank you for all the support these past several months in anticipation of the ‘WICKED’ movie. Here’s what happened: as we prepared this production over the last year, it became increasingly clear that it would be impossible to wrestle the story of ‘WICKED’ into a single film without doing some real damage to it. With more space, we can tell the story of WICKED as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys of these beloved characters.”
‘Wicked: Part One’ is set to be released in December 2024, with the second following in 2025.
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