Jonathan Bailey Dishes on Filming ‘Wicked’ During the Strike and When ‘Bridgerton’ Might Be Back

Jonathan Bailey is a busy man. The 35-year-old actor recently appeared on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live, and discussed his projects that are in the works, which include the upcoming Wicked movie and season 3 of Bridgerton.

While many sets shut down in July when SAG-AFTRA went on strike — the strike has since ended — Bailey was able to continue his work on the project thanks to the type of contract he had.

“It’s pretty extraordinary,” he said. “I think we had 10 days left filming before the strike hit. I was the only actor who was on an equity contract, so I had these four days where I came up and acted with people in wigs who were pretending to be [other actors].”

Bailey hasn’t wrapped filming his role of Fiyero just yet, but is excited for fans to see the project, which stars Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. 

“It’s just been the most extraordinary year. The girls, Ari and Cynthia, and everyone is gonna be extraordinary,” Bailey said. “[Grande and I] have a little duet here and there, a little boogie. I’ve got a duet with Cynthia as well, so it’s kind of like the G-Force, you feel it in the face.”

Earlier this year, Bailey was hard at work filming Wicked, Bridgerton and Fellow Travelers at the same time.

“There was this extraordinary long weekend that I was thinking about this morning,” he said, before discussing Fellow Travelers, a decades-long political thriller, with a hidden romance between Bailey and Matt Bomer‘s characters.

“On the Thursday, it was World AIDS Day and I was lying in the bed of a San Francisco AIDS ward and it was incredibly emotional for so many people involved. It’s a predominantly gay creative team as well, many of whom have lived through the eighties,” he explained. “I finished that day, I went straight to the airport, slept for about four hours, got picked up from Heathrow, went straight to a Regency Ball, got my hair curled and then I stayed there two days.”

“On the last day, I then went to the Oz Dust Ball and I danced with Ari and then I flew back and I didn’t have a day off,” he continued. “It was that for 32 days. It was wild.”

Fellow Travelers premiered last month on Showtime and Wicked: Part One is due out next November. As for when fans will get to see season 3 of Bridgerton, in which Bailey stars as Anthony, the actor teased that it “could happen at any moment,” before noting that fans will “definitely get at least four weeks heads up” before the Netflix series premieres.

He added, “Bridgerton-wise, I think there’s so much I’m really excited about. You hand over the baton, but we’ll still be there.”

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