The secret’s out! After director Jon M. Chu teased that Wicked: For Good would feature an A-list actor as the voice of the Cowardly Lion, the man behind the mane has been revealed.
As announced Monday (Oct. 20), Colman Domingo will voice the furriest of Dorothy Gale’s three Ozian friends. The film’s team unveiled the news with an Instagram post showing the actor hiding his face behind a stuffed animal lion before making the big reveal.
“See you in Oz!” he says, winking at the camera.
The news comes just a few days after Chu was quoted as saying that Lion’s voice actor would shock Wicked fans in the best way. “Man, wait until the red carpet when the actor who gave us the Cowardly Lion’s voice steps foot on it,” the director told Deadline. “It’ll be wild.”
Chu also added at the time that he’d booked Domingo — who is known for his roles in Euphoria and Sing Sing — by simply messaging him on Instagram. “I was like, ‘It’s not a ton of lines, but maybe you have a little time,’” he shared. “‘I know you’re busy. I’ll come to you.’ He was like, ‘Why the f–k not? Let’s go!’ And then we went ahead and recorded the lines.”
In the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie, Bert Lahr portrays Lion, who meets Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man along the Yellow Brick Road en route to the Emerald City. In the Wicked Broadway musical, Lion is revealed to be the grown-up version of a caged lion cub that Elphaba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) set free one day at school.
Starring Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good, Chu’s Wicked duology is based on the Broadway stage production, which itself was based on Gregory Maguire’s novel of the same name. The first of the live-action adaptations arrived in November 2024, shattering box-office records. For Good is set to hit theaters in
See the Wicked: For Good Cowardly Lion announcement below.
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