Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh on the Slippery Charm of Their Wicked Villains

With awards season in full swing ahead of the Oscars, the cast of the very-nominated Wicked is pulling out all the stops aboard their emerald green hype train. In a recent interview with Rotten Tomatoes, the Wizard of Oz himself (Jeff Goldblum) and his right-hand conspirator Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) talked about their timely takes on the characters when asked if their villains were inspired by historical figures.

Gregory Maguire’s original Wicked novel and its Broadway adaptation from Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman depicted the duo as fascists behind the veneer of the emerald green facade of Oz—and both Goldblum and Yeoh’s performances speak to the very timely attributes of figures in power.

Speaking about his collaboration with Wicked director Jon M. Chu, Goldblum explained, “There have been people throughout human history, who have, even though they seemed nice enough, and just like one of us, use demonizing others to seize and enhance power, and sometimes they’re quite charismatic. Jon helped me in my whole approach. I’m nothing if not conscientious, and I had worked on my lines and was having a hundred ideas, besides all the moments that were in the script, which was delicious and wonderful.”

He continued. “And then [Jon] called in Ariana [Grande] and Cynthia [Erivo], and he said, ‘Let’s act out a couple of these scenes, and if Jeff wants to kind of change up a couple of things, just go with him’ And that’s how it started. It was an organic kind of approach that was just full of joy and synergy. You know, I looked in their eyes and, how can you not be moved and inspired to come up with a thousand other things?”

For Yeoh, who worked with Chu previously on Crazy, Rich Asians as the romantic lead’s mother, adding nuance and complexity to the monster-in-law tropes, here went more into a villain era for Madame Morrible, the Shiz headmistress with a plan to keep the Wizard in power. Yeoh recalled asking Chu, “Why do you think of me when you think of someone a little, you know…I don’t want to say wicked, but a little bit tough. Madam Morrible has an agenda, and this agenda she has shared with definitely the wizard. So I think between John and Jeff [and I] we said, ‘Maybe there was something always going on between them.’” Wow. So Morrible and Wizard ship confirmed.

She continued. “Because they were the only two people who were always strategizing, manipulating, making things happen. And at the beginning, you can see Madame Morrible is an educator, so she is a nurturer. And I think that the journey was even worse for Elphaba, because this was the first time she felt loved, seen, and heard. That was where Jon was really brilliant in making Madame Morrible someone that you truly trusted and wanted to believe in, because [it] means you believed in yourself, and she brought you to greater heights.”

Yeoh described how her character’s charm was turned against Elphaba who wanted to make good, then became a scapegoat when she realized the Wizard and Morrible’s plans. “Madame Morrible, she really is the wicked witch. They both had such a precious agenda that they couldn’t let go of. They would take someone else’s dream so that they can fulfill their own. The Wizard, wanting to go home, getting on that balloon and flying off back to Kansas. And Madame Morrible wanted her Book of Enchantment to be open, and couldn’t understand why Elphaba wouldn’t want the same thing, because she was doing it for the good of us. Jeff and I had a wonderful time sort of like giving everyone this illusion—was it there, isn’t there, are they, are they not? So that was fun for us.”

Watch more of the interview from Rotten Tomatoes below.

Wicked is out now in theaters and on digital. Wicked: For Good opens this Thanksgiving.

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