Jonathan Bailey on being the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’: Misunderstood?

LOS ANGELES – “Yes, I’m the sexiest man alive. What about it?” Jonathan Bailey quipped in his recent playful Zoom press conference.

That’s how Bailey humorously reacted when the moderator teasingly asked the actor, who reprises his Prince Fiyero role in “Wicked: For Good,” “I want to know what you thought I was going to ask.”

“Am I misunderstood as the Sexiest Man Alive?” Bailey, gifted with British wit, jokingly asked aloud about his new title, bestowed by People, which annually cites a personality as its Sexiest Man Alive. “Yes. Is he misunderstood? Of course, he is, but everyone is all the same, and he misunderstands himself.”

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Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo in “Wicked: for Good” | Universal Pictures

The first openly gay man to receive the title, who plays the swashbuckling prince with a winking charm, continued, “And that’s what the biggest, most inspiring thing, even for me to actually play the part, is the opportunity to show that and to show a masculinity that is kind and flawed. Everyone is trapped by their own narratives that they either inherited or they put upon themselves.”

“And he’s very much evidence of someone who has to really find himself at such a taut and great place of pain, misery, and also aggravation. And he sacrifices everything for someone who’s completely vilified and marginalized.” Spoiler alert: Bailey was referring to Erivo’s Elphaba, of course.

“And he knows what he has to do in that moment. What a privilege it is to play that part, to know that if I ever find myself in that position, I think I will now know what to do.”

To the moderator’s comment, “Right on, even the Sexiest Man Alive is misunderstood, and that’s great,” the English actor riposted. “I think the Sexiest Man Alive is more misunderstood.”

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Bailey said it best about his Fiyero in the part two – now the captain of the wizard’s guard, Glinda’s fiancé, but is actually pining for Elphaba, labeled Wicked Witch of the West and banished by the Oz government. “I wanted it to feel like he’s a burning sparkler that’s slowly dimming, but the heat is still there. I think there’s a very kind and hopefully powerful alignment and energy towards him all the way through. That’s what you hope for, anyway.”

The audience at the film’s New York premiere that I attended went wild over Fiyero and Elphaba’s duet, “As Long as You’re Mine.” On how he and Erivo approached the song and made it an electric moment in the film, Bailey answered, “Cynthia didn’t just hold me up throughout that performance, but the whole audience as well. It was amazing.”

“That was a really brilliant example of how we came in, and we had a couple of hours of rehearsal a week ahead of shooting it. The biggest challenge there is when exploring in close-up and in the extraordinary world that’s now been built, how do you really make sense of what’s happening between the two of them?”

“They have to discover each other in a way that they’ve not ever been given the permission to. And it’s the perfect chemistry or equation for a real sensual communication between two people who are kind of animal-like with each other. And I’m really proud of it.”

He added, “With Cynthia, we were locked in, and it’s a great privilege just to sit and kneel in front of her while she sings in your face. I think hair and makeup had to keep pushing my hair back because of the force.”

Even Stephen Schwartz, the renowned musical composer behind “Wicked’s” iconic songs, was thrilled watching and listening to Bailey and Erivo sing “As Long as You’re Mine”: “It’s one of the sexiest things ever filmed and how Jon Chu did that. First of all, part of it is due to ‘Jonny’ Bailey and Cynthia Erivo.

They’re fully clothed for the whole thing. I think Jonny drops a suspender or something, and people are whooping at the screen because it’s so sexy. That certainly changed my perspective about that song.”

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