Wicked: For Good with Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox

[Music] Okay, today on Script Apart, we are off to see the Wizards, the wonderful storytelling wizards that is behind the first ever musical that we've covered on this show. In the early 'Noughties', the New York-born playwright, Winnie Holesman, was still reeling from the September 11th attacks that claimed almost 3,000 lives. But it wasn't just the attacks themselves that haunted her, it was the division they brought to. Racial minorities, America's Muslim population specifically, were scapegoated and othered in the aftermath of 9/11. And so, Winnie got to work, pairing with composer Steven Schwarz on a musical that would covertly grapple with the skyrocketing racism and paranoia of conflicts to come within that moment. Soon, something wicked was to come our way. Inspired by a book of the same name by the author Gregory Maguire, Winnie and Steven's Broadway extravaganza took one of the defining stories in cinematic history, The Wizard of Oz, and invited audiences to look at that tale a little bit differently. What if the so-called 'wicked witch of the West' in that film, all green skin and shrill cackel, wasn't actually the terroristic threat that Dorothy and viewers thought her to be? What if there was a more tender truth to this woman, who lest we forget in that 1939 movie, was just trying to retrieve the Ruby slippers worn by her dead sister, who had been crushed to death by Dorothy's home when it was transported by a tornado to Oz. Chances are, you know, exactly what happened next. Forbes magazine estimates that 65 million people around the world have seen wicked since its first hit stages in 2003. It is the fourth longest running play in Broadway history. And now of course, it's also a blockbuster smash hit too, courtesy of a two-part adaptation of the musical written by Winnie with my other guest today, the Cruella screenwriter Dana Fox. Last year's film, simply titled 'Wicked' covered the first half of the stage play. Now, wicked for good is here, bringing this tale to the end of its yellow brick road. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Winnie and Dana tell me about the strangeness of this movie arriving in this particular political moment. I don't know about you guys at home, but the sight in wicked and wicked for good. Of marginalised groups being rounded up and forced from their homes in a year of ice raids and anti-immigrant anger, well, it's struck a chord for me and I'm sure for some of you guys too. This conversation is not all politics though, I promise. We also get into the prisons of perception, the Elfaba and Glinter played by Cynthia Arrivo and Ariana Grande respectively. Both need to break free of in this story. You'll also hear the pair's reflections on the huge differences between their version of 'Wicked' and the Gregory Maguire original text, which saw Elfaba join an underground pericel. It's a riveting conversation, a big thank you to Dana and Winnie for being fantastic guests, and a big thank you to our Patreon supporters without whom this show could not go on. Head to patreon.com/scriptapart to get involved in that community if you're not already part of it. And finally, before we dive into the conversation itself, a reminder for the screenwriters among you that 'Scriptapart' now offers 'Script, Coverage' and 'One on One' creative workshops. Meaning, if you've just finished a draft of a screenplay and are looking for comprehensive notes, going into granular detail on your story and characters, I have got you. If you're an emerging writer with an idea for a story that you'd love to tell and if you're looking for help bringing that idea to the page, I can help you there too. It makes a great gift for the screenwriter in your life this holiday season. It's also a great gift to yourself as 2026 approaches and all of our screenwriters head into the new year with renewed focus on chasing down our storytelling dreams. Head to scriptapart.com/coverage to learn more there, that's scriptapart.com/coverage. Okay, with that all out the way, we can jump straight in with Winnie and Dana discussing the first draft secrets of Wicked and Wicked for Good. Thanks everyone for being here, this episode was produced by Camille de Mack and hosted by me, Al Horner. Thanks once again guys, I hope you enjoy the conversation. Guys, congratulations on Wicked for Good, I had such a beautiful time with this film. I wanted to begin by asking because this story culminates in a song about the ways that someone else can alter the course of your life and kind of the chemistry of who you are, like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun to quote the song. Let me begin here, how have these two characters, Elfa Baringlinder, changed the trajectory of who each of you are, and maybe Winnie I can begin with you because that's obviously a relationship spanning a good couple of decades now. That's that an easy question because how haven't they of Horner's I mean, the characters yes, but what I think of first is the people I've worked with, the depth of collaboration, it's so precious when you can create something together with others that is so much bigger and deeper than you could do on your own. That is, we were talking about a bond just before, that is one of the most wonderful, joyful bonds you can have with someone to have created together. So to have that with Dana, but going back obviously even further, to have that with Stephen Schwartz, who's really is like my brother now, a brother to me and and just the beauty of that feeling that you look at that other person and you go, we did this together. That's what I go to first, the characters are obviously very meaningful in my life and I love them and I feel like I'm kind of like both of them in different ways, but for me it's that's the, and you know, John Chu coming into my life and our lives and he brought Dana with him and you know just the specialness of being able to to realize that you don't really, like we were just laughing before about how all the little details we don't know about each other's lives, but we know each other on a very deep, profound level that doesn't have to do with details of like whether or not I used to be a smoker or you know, it doesn't have to do with that, it has to do with it's on a soul level, which of course is echoed in that song and in the show. So that's how I would answer that. And Dana, how about you? It's been a short journey for you with these characters, but presumably a significant one. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel so grateful to Winnie and Steven for sharing this extraordinary legacy with me. It is something that I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for because of the way that people have responded to these movies and the way that they come up to you to tell you what they've meant to them. And I've heard so many stories of what Elphaba and Glinda mean, other people. And frankly, like that's the biggest deal for me of any of it. But to me in particular, I would say, you know, Elphaba makes me think about the power of vulnerability. As a woman who has tried to exist in a mostly male business, they have had to work really hard to pretzel myself into the shape, I think, is the right shape for displaying female power. And it seems sometimes as if there is no shape that is acceptable to people of female power. And I think her character and particularly the way that Cynthia played it shows me that strength can look like years. It can look like honesty. It can look like admitting that you're afraid and that those things don't take away from how powerful you are. Because I always struggled with that. I always wanted to be really just fully me and say, like, I don't know. And I'm scared that I don't know, or I feel vulnerable, or I want to cry in this meeting. And I used to not do it. And now I just cry in the meetings. And I'm like, I'm still powerful. But look at me, I'm sobbing in this meeting. It's a power play. I promise you. But that would be the thing I think I've taken away from Elphaba the most. And then I think from Glinda, I would say, you know, I always want to believe I'm like Elphaba, but I am very much like Glinda. I am a people pleaser. I can't help it. I've tried so hard to kill that part of myself. I just can't quite do it. And, you know, I know what it looks like to lie to yourself, to try to convince yourself that something that you want or something that you're doing is okay. When really your deep job inside, you know that it's not. And I've wrestled with those stomach aches and what that does inside me is ultimately the truth has to come out of me. And one of the things I love so much about Glinda and the way Ariana plays her is just that she sort of wears that so visibly on her face that I feel understood as a person just watching her grapple with that role, and that it's never too late to stand up and do the right thing. That actually that might be harder than being a person who kind of knows what the right thing is and doesn't right away. So I get a lot of hope from her. And then I would say, Winnie is the character, is the real person who has changed me for good because her love and this relationship and the collaboration we've shared as writers has taught me so much and I have loved every minute of it. And I will always be changed because of Winnie. So she's the main character in my life. That's so nice. You know, I love that you talked about the word power because I think that that's a big part of our story is what does it truly mean to be powerful? What does it truly mean to step into your own power? You know, is it power over others? Or is it inner grappling with your own truth, with your own spiritual truth? And I think in many ways that's the heart of the movie. What is true power? Is it power if people love you or look at our side of you? Our right of you. Exactly. Like what is power? And it's an important question always, I think. That's a question that I think I love that you brought up being a powerful woman, Dana, because I think that is also at the heart of our movies. How does, how can, you know, what is it to be? Like in Hollywood so often, you know, for a long time, I felt like I was hearing like if a woman, a woman character was powerful if she was the one with the gun, you know, or if she was, she was the one like hurting someone else, like, you know, torturing someone or that's, you know, what I mean? Like that's the strong, but don't you think, Dana? Like, absolutely. Like that's the powerful woman character. And one of the things I'm really, I feel really good about is that we have these powerful female characters and they're displaying a real femininity, a real feminine power. And it has nothing to do with who's got the gun, or you know, or who's, who's, you know, it's on a deeper spiritual level, which I think we all have to go to if we want to survive, you know, as a, as a species. Someday we're going to have to go there. I know it sounds rough, but we're going to have to lay down the guns at some point and find other, other ways to express what power means, what true power means. Yeah, that's so beautifully purts. Everything that we're talking about there kind of speaks to the universality of this story. Like, yes, the story takes place in a faraway land called Oz and it involves witches and has this fantasy wrapper, but there is so much in here that's so relatable. Like, you know, the, the kind of joy of a friend who sees you and gets you, that is so universal. That's baked into this story. The feeling of being othered for being different too, like again, that is a big part of what wicked is. Can you each tell me about your understanding of those relatable elements? And what you think it is about each of these kind of components of the wicked story that has inspired such emotion and devotion over the years, people for two decades now, even prior to this story reaching the big screen, have been finding themselves reflected in this story. And I'm curious what you think that reflection is. The, well, the, wait, the first one you said, the one was the otherness, right? And the other was the friendship element of the sea, the sea. You know, this is something that we've been talking about a lot is, you know, within the DNA of the story is how, how are you looking? What, what are you seeing when you're looking? Are you looking up at the surface? The home nature of wicked as a story is why don't you look at this familiar story from this other angle? And you're going to see so much more. It's not that what you were seeing before wasn't had no reality. It's that you were only seeing the very surface and you weren't looking in a more in-depth soulful, heartfelt way. You weren't coming from a depth of compassion. So you were unable to truly see what was right in front of you, whether that's a person or a situation in a country, or, you know, the humanity of another group. I think that what you're saying is really beautiful winning. And I think that what I've found so fascinating about the fans of this are that every single person has something different that they have taken away from the movie as the main thing that they feel is so universal to them, which is so interesting to me because a lot of times, you know, people can't find themselves in a movie or a story. And everyone seems to be able to find themselves in this somewhere, not the same places, not in the same ways. So you were talking about the other quality of being other. You know, everyone I do think knows what that feels like even if you are someone who actually is in whatever the majority so and so is, you know, let's say you're in a family, sometimes you feel just other than your own family. I've one kid who sort of doesn't feel like he belongs the same way that the rest of the kids feel. And it's like he's got the same parents, he's got the same house, he just feels like he's the other. And then down to much more serious versions of that, which are happening all over and is such a huge problem in so many different cultures and societies. So I think that to be able to put you into Elphabuzz point of view, she is the othered and yet you relate so deeply to her and you feel so deeply for her and with her, you're empathizing and you're in her perspective and her point of view for so much of this that the other has become the central point of view, which is such an interesting thing for a story to be able to coax you into. And yet, Glinda's always there, shiny and looking like the star of everything. And so what you have is this fascinating version of, as you said, we're learning how to look at someone, not seeing them through what you think they are, but actually looking at them and saying, no, I see you, I actually see you. And the freedom that that creates, if you feel that a friend like you're saying, I'll actually see you, a false and all. And they really see who you are and they accept you. I mean, there's no freedom like that. That's the most extraordinary feeling. That's what we all long for, right? I think part of the power of the movie that we, the movies that we all long to be, to be seen, to be understood on that heart level, not for our flaws or our mistakes. But to be really seen in our humanity and in how much we're trying. The whole idea, I think, of Glinda in this movie is that she's struggling with something really deep that is hard for her, really hard for her. Like it's it's asking everything of her to give up all that surface stuff that she's clung to for security and to feel okay about herself. And when she finally, you know, in those in those final scenes, when she finally, let's go after the song that Stephen wrote, the beautiful new song that Stephen wrote, when she finally just lets it drop and let's go, you know, it's kind of symbolized in so many ways, the way John shot it when she, when she, you know, you just see her, you just see her drop everything and be and be humble, you know, and be just that humble person who's willing to, who's willing to learn, you know, who's willing to just completely do whatever it takes to stand up for truth, whatever that takes. When you're in a position like that in life, I think a lot of us know, that's when, that's when miracles can happen. That's when amazing things can happen when you're really there finally, you know, and you're not telling life what to do, you know, you're not saying, it has to be this and it has to look like that and, you know, when you're just totally opened up and ready to, to, to, to, to admit that you don't know and that you're scared and that you're, you know, were you ready to learn? There was so much that you said there that, that really resonated with me and especially the idea of kind of perception, Winnie, because it struck me watching Wicked for good, that, you know, it's easy to spot that kind of metaphor in Wicked from afar of like Elphaba is other, she's perceived as being this one thing because of her appearance and she has a hard time kind of, like, you know, being seen beyond that perception. What you just said there about Glinda kind of made me think about how like you wouldn't necessarily know it from, from afar, but like this film does kind of get into how she is also trapped in a bubble of perception. There's, there's a really heartbreaking scene where Glinda's mum tells her as a child, you're loved by everyone, as long as you have that, you'll be okay, which is meant as a comforting thing but is such a suffocating thing to be told. And yeah, I'm curious, like, was that kind of like part of the connection between the characters as you saw them? Are they both stuck in this bubble of like feeling imprisoned by how they're seen versus who they actually are? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, well, Dana jumped in and they had to be pulling. Oh, you go. I love it. But I think they, I think one of the interesting things about this friendship is that the second that they meet each other in movie one, there's this, there's almost like this electric charge of like, what is that? Who is that that's looking at me? Who is that other person looking at me back at me? And there's this terrifying almost like a lightning bolt that can happen when you meet someone who is going to change your life. I mean, sometimes there's this feeling of like, oh my god, oh my god, it's not necessarily a great feeling. It's not necessarily a romantic, yummy feeling of like, oh, I've met this soulmate who's going to change my life. Sometimes it's like, oh, what the fuck is going on? Like this person challenges me in every way. Why? And that answer is going to be the journey of your friendship. You know, and it's like they both have so much more in common than they realize. They're both isolated, figures it away. Dana was saying in an interview we were, we did earlier so beautifully. She Dana said, you know, she, she has all these friends around her always has the little girl. She has this little birthday party friends. She has her friends at college, but she's surrounded by people who don't really know her and don't really need to know her. They just see what they're looking at as attain aspirational and exciting and they want part to be part of that. She's an object in so many ways. Just the way Elphaba is just, you know, judged by the fact that her skin is a different, a strange quote unquote color. And, you know, these are both very superficial things about these people that have nothing to do with their heart. They're soul. So I, yes, I think they have so much in common, obviously, even though they're so, so different. And I think that's part of the the humor, but it's also part of what impureates them, which is so funny to see. They're so mad that they actually are similar. Exactly. And that they feel this strange connection. Yeah, yeah, that that that is almost beyond words, although Stephen ends up putting incredible words to it. I am ashamed to say I never, I'd never read the novel. I never read the source text. So I wasn't aware of exactly. You're welcome here. You don't have to worry about that. I don't think Dana Foss was. I also did not, but I love the central idea at the core of it. And I'm so motivated and inspired by stories that try to take what you thought you knew and show it to you from a new perspective. I'm always interested in those kinds of stories. I mean, I, I did Cruella before this and I was like obsessed with the idea that since villainous character, there would be absolutely hates. And, you know, I always say to myself, well, what would I have to, what would have to happen to me to get me into the position of wanting to skin puppies because nobody loves a dog more than I do. So I have to create a bad story for this person where you could actually imagine her getting to that point at some point. And even then I couldn't do it. I had to like push into another movie someday in the future. I was like, I'm never doing. I can't do it. But it's fascinating to me to sort of see like, oh, that's that marginalized character that's kind of an inside of his other story that comes in and blusters and whatever. It's like, well, who is that? Let's go follow that person around and see what their life is like. And I think that's partly why I wanted to become a writer in the first place was because I find people so interesting. I could literally follow any person on the street around and find the most interesting version of their story to tell because I just think people are endlessly fascinating. And you know, my husband's embarrassed by it. I spy on people while I were at dinner all the time. And he's like, can you just look at me for five seconds? I'm like, no, these people are over the craziest conversation. Listen to them. You know, he's like, I can't believe she's saying that to her husband. He just keeps not saying anything back to her as wild, you know. Well, that's just being a writer. I mean, yeah, it should be fun though, but like characters are interesting. You know, that I mean, if you're a writer, you're you have to listen to other people's conversations. I mean, that's exactly. And that's how you find out how people really talk and the way that they mess up grammar and they don't usually use correct grammar. And I'm a crazy grammar person, but that's not how people talk, you know. But don't you think, Dana, that also it's important to to in other words, people people will seem boring or characters will seem boring. If you haven't done, if you haven't gone deep. Yes. Yes. It's like, it's like we can all all of us are boring. If we if we're staying on a surface level and we're refusing to look, you know, things get really interesting when you get, I mean, not to keep harping on this looking and seeing, but I guess you're stuck with me. And that's what I'm really interested in. But you have to be willing to go to that deeper place as a writer and as a person. You know, I always say to myself, if I'm bored in a certain situation or if I'm bored with a certain person, it's because I'm not willing to go to that deeper place with them. I think there's something cool about the way that when we did this development process, which was we talked for so long before we actually started writing. And part of that was by virtue of the fact that there was always this incredible foundational material in the play and in Gregory's novel. But then, you know, just talking so deeply about these characters, it was almost like we wanted to put them on the couch and do a therapy session with them for like months on end to really truly understand them. And, you know, of course, Winnie and Steven understood these characters so profoundly and deeply, but then I kind of had to go on that journey with them to try to understand the way that they did. And I think what it leads to is a story where at every moment in the movie, we know what they are, we are, they're thinking. We the audience do because Winnie and I knew, you know, when we were writing those things, we knew exactly what they were thinking and feeling and how and what was going on. And then some of the excitement is what the actresses who are so extraordinary then bring to it, that is who they are. And the way they're who they are as people wanted to come through that material was really exciting to watch. And you hope that you're writing inspires that constantly. You want it to inspire that. So that was really exciting to see. And then I think for me, the end result was the movie takes these two people so seriously and takes their problems so seriously. And like you said, at the beginning, there's this fantasy element and there's witches and it's colorful and it's Oz and there's music and all this stuff. But what I take away from it is how incredibly real it feels. Like everyone feels like a very deep, rich, real person. Fiero, I feel like I know everything about the guy and he's like, you know, what's his deal? But I know it. I get it. And so I loved being able to explore them so deeply so that when they are forced to make a choice, which most people try to avoid having a moment where the chips are down and they actually have to make a choice. And usually life forces you into that moment. And so these characters are forced into this moment where they actually have to make a choice and the chips are down. And so with all that work we had done on character, it felt so exciting to like let almost let it tell us what they were going to do when the chips were down. And that's what's exciting to me about this movie is that you're seeing these two different women who hate that they're similar and they ultimately have to face this big moment of who are you when the chips are down? Like this is it. This is the moment you have to decide and it's this deep test of this friendship that has been pushed to its absolute limits. And people who have been pushed their absolute limits. And it's like I love watching it so dramatic. It's so exciting. And then of course I'm stopping and tears are pointing and then I will wear no makeup to the premiere just so everyone's clear. Though we know makeup on my face because it would be stopped off. Anyway, so I'm just not even going to wear it. Oh my lord. You won't be alone. Yeah, one of the things that struck me in my research into the source text was yeah, in that novel, Elphabagos into hiding and joins an underground terrorist group. And the kind of focus is quite different, Winnie. The, it's very different. The novels, you know, the novel, what it did is it, you know, it was, it's, it's, first of all, he's a brilliant writer. It's very, it's an endlessly inspiring idea as we've discussed this idea, the core idea. And then this brilliant thing he comes up with in the novel that they were college roommates that glinted at the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West were roommates in college. I mean, Steven and I immediately sparked to that. We, we, we calmed on to that and we held on for dear life because we felt that that was the, we began to realize that that was really just the rich, the rich, the rich mind that we could mine, right? And for humor, certainly, but for, for in, in every way, as we've been talking about. But I just wanted to say with all respect to Gregory McWire and the novel Wicked, that we soon walked away from the novel, which we needed to do and we did with Gregory's blessing. Because in creating the show we felt very much that we had to, you know, look into each other's eyes and well we weren't in the same city a lot of time, but just be together, talk it through and come up with our own version of Wicked, which is what we did, because we didn't see that as laying out as a plot if you see what I mean. And that's part of, you know, the great good fortune we had that we had Gregory's blessing that he did allow us to have free reign with the plot of the novel, because we just never felt that we could be faithful to the plot of what he'd written. It just didn't speak to us in that way. And I think, you know, just for anyone who's looking to adapt, if you are fortunate to have the rights, which you need to have the rights, unless it's in public domain, in which case you don't have to worry about that. But I think I think adaptation is no different really than any other kind of creative pursuit where you really need to go within and understand as Dana was talking about before, like what does this mean to you? How are you present in this story? Where can you get the most personal? Where does it, what does it, what is it saying to you? And what do you want to express? And it gets to those kind of things, you know, it's not about what did he write or what did she write, because that's not really going to get you the distance. I don't think that's not going to really get you very far. You know, why not just leave it as it is a novel if you're going to kind of ate it, you know? And I think that's great. I think that's great advice, when he to writers, because, you know, it took me so long to think that way, because I needed money when I first started out. Like I just needed to say yes to any job I got I couldn't afford to say no to anything. So if somebody was like, I'm writing this movie about a paper bag, I'd be like, you know, I have always loved paper bags. Let me tell you about why I love them so much. And I just had to be excited about whatever the thing was, but it took a very long time for me to actually think that what I cared about in some kind of material had value. And what I realized was the reason it has value is because you're going to write about it better, because you actually care about it. So I think that's really good advice for anyone who's starting out or trying to be a writer is in every single idea, find out what the specific thing is that speaks to you directly and to your upbringing and to your that makes you feel passionate. And sometimes I do this weird experiment when I'm trying to decide about jobs to take. This is going to sound bonkers, but I do an experiment where I pretend I have to have an interview about it. And I pretend I have to talk about it, not write it, just talk about it. And I say to myself, like, am I bored? Like, do I, or am I so excited that I could keep talking about this for another three hours? And if you happen to be able to say, yes, no, I'm so excited about this that I could talk about it for three more hours, just about it, then follow that feeling because you're going to write it better, you're going to write it faster, you're going to, and people are going to be able to feel your care in it. If that makes sense. Right. And I think what we did with the novel wicked is we literally, I mean, you just took the words out of my mouth kind of Dana, as often you do. It's like, we have a back and forth, which works. But it's like, it's like, we would, we would interrogate various moments in the novel and say, does this speak to us? And, you know, and if it didn't, we just would jettison it. But so what I'm trying to say in my long-winded way is that by the time we got to John Chiu and we got to John bringing Dana in, and we were really the four of us, meaning me, Stephen, Dana and John, doing these long, long, long, long Zoom sessions, where we interrogated every part of our musical. We were very far from the novel and we were not bringing up the novel anymore. If you see what I mean, then we could be, you just have to, you have to work with what is, what is, you only have yourself and you own, you yourself are your own audience, you know. And I'm not saying I never thought about the fans because of course we did some, some, we want, we cared very much what they were going to think and we wanted them to feel great about it. But in the end, it's really your own, what, what, what, what is this moment feel like, I, I need it to express, what, what am I looking to express here? What, what do I wish would happen? Literally, what do I wish, what, what I wish they would say? And so you're, you're no longer using an object like the novel, you're using yourself, you know, I mean, and each other. I mean, I think we were, that's, we were really leaning on each other during these, these really zoom sessions and talking to each other about different moments and it's like, what is this really? What do you, what, this is what I think this is? What do you think this is? Or very often with Dana and I like, what else could happen here that would bring it even deeper, you know, would bring you to a deeper level and deeper can mean comically deeper, you know, even funnier or something like, it doesn't have to mean deep, deep, intense emotion. But you know, of course with intense emotion is going to, if you can have intense emotion with comedy as well, obviously, the whole nature of comedy is that people feel very fiercely and very intensely about something really silly. Well, I can really feel how, you know, when you approached Gregory's novel, like you were kind of giving voice to something inside yourself and you were letting that kind of guide the adaptation. I'm interested though, what else from the outside world was perhaps bleeding in because, well, it was interesting, something that really struck me about Gregory's process was, it turns out like his inspiration for the novel was he had moved to London and at that time the country was reeling from the death of this young boy named Jamie Bulger by these other young kids and it sparked this whole conversation about like what evil is, is it born that way? Did the circumstances there, they're kind of brought up in, create that evil? And yeah, I'm curious, that was the kind of like outside world bleeding into his storytelling. Was there anything like in the news, like happening in real life that you think was bleeding in that perhaps guided you in terms of the focus, perhaps on othering and racism in your adaptation of the story? With the movies, you mean, or with the original? Well, I'm interested in both because of course the the original, like, yeah, that's obviously kind of what we're working from here and what we're adapting for the screen, but also, you know, something to discuss here and I'm sure we will is like this version of this story, it's coming out in a time where othering and racism is in resurgence, vulnerable, vulnerable communities are being scapegoated, people are being forced from their homes. I think like, perhaps more than any other point in wicked's lifetime as a musical, there is this political resonance, there is this kind of timeliness to it. Yeah, so obviously this is not something we could have ever planned or, you know, in other words, it's completely, um, it's coincidental timing, but I mean, and, and Winnie, you've talked about when you were writing the play, that was sort of in the shadow of 9/11, and then when we were working on the movie, we were in the middle of COVID and, you know, unfortunately, I think that the honest truth is the reason it's so timely is because this is timeless, this keeps happening, um, everywhere, not just America, but everywhere. So, you know, of course, we didn't design the movie to be about the current political situation, we couldn't have it was five years ago, so we didn't know what was going to be happening, but I'm happy that it is going to feel resonant for people. I'm happy that they're going to be able to see a representation of what it feels like to be not allowed on a train, um, to be taken away, to be told that you aren't welcome in a, in an entire place, because I think that's the best way for people to have empathy for people who that's really happening to in real life is to be able to see it in a safe place like a movie theater and have real feelings about it in a safe place and realize like, yes, really affecting real people, um, and ours is Oz, and so it might be a safer way for people to experience those feelings of empathy, and I'm hopeful that it will let them do that in a way that might change their minds about whether people deserve to be treated like that or not. Right, or change their hearts even, you know, like, yeah, I mean, I agree, I certainly agree with that. I think the idea of what it means to be wicked, truly wicked, what it means to be good, what it means to label someone wicked, and when that's used as a power play or a way to gain power, and what it means to sort of assume the mantle of goodness when, when it's not been earned and when it's kind of a corruption of the word. I think that all of those things, as Dan is just said, are timeless. Those are timeless human questions that we will always wrestle with, that we've always had as huge dilemmas in our human existence. You know, it's like these are, this is, it's critically important in our all of our lives, no matter what time span we're living through, to maybe have to wrestle with, you know, in a personal sense, you know, how do we live? If how do we live a life that's truly good, rather than just appears to be good, and all of this idea of who gets labeled wicked and why? This is something that has never left us. This is the human condition in a way. - It's absolutely right, when it really is. And it's one of the things I find really cool about the second movie is that you get a chance to see how some of these choices come out of pain, personal pain. If you think about NASA passing the law that disallows Munchkin's from being able to travel, it's because of pain, it's because of heartbreak. And I do find that kind of fascinating to see, I mean, for the wizard even, so much of what he does is from a feeling of inadequacy and that's pain. And it's especially, you know, the man who potentially has a male ego, that is very hard for him to think about having to go back to being just a normal guy who was kind of a loser and pretty inadequate. So he's willing to do pretty much anything to not have to sit with those feelings again. - Exactly. - And I find that really interesting to examine is like that is where evil and wickedness comes from, I think is a sense of running away from your own fear and your own pain, you know. - Absolutely, absolutely beautifully said, beautifully said Dana Fox. - I love you, Winnie. You're beautiful. Everything about you is my favorite thing. I just can't stand it. I love you so much. It's for, I try not to say things like that in interviews 'cause Dana, like, calm down, but she's just the best. She's just the best. And how lucky are we that we get to talk about these really deep things in a movie that's fundamentally like a superhero movie with beautiful canvas that looks gorgeous, that's fun to watch. But that ultimately is like the there, there underneath this movie is so deep. And if you wanna go there with this movie, you can and stand for you. - Truly, and I think people really appreciate that. I mean, I don't know yet how people are gonna, audiences are gonna react to the movie, but just based on the first reactions to the, you know, to the first movie, it seems like people are really appreciative of being able to be entertained and then ask to go to this deeper, more emotional place, invite it, I should say, you know, invite it in to this more emotional place. And I think people are actually thirsty, hungry for that. They want that. They don't want to, they don't want to have a sort of, you know, a sort of dulled out, a sort of zoned out, you know, experience. They want, they wanna feel something. - I agree. I couldn't agree more, Wendy. I think people have so much of their lives is zoning out because of phones and social media and everything we all do to dull ourselves out. And I completely agree with you that people want to feel something. - Yes. - And I hope we give them that opportunity. - Well, we sure did our best. We sure tried our best. - We sure tried our best. - Yeah, nobody's ever tried our best. - No one can say that we didn't try hard, that we didn't give it a far-all. Absolutely. - I'm laughing, but honestly, that is the best feeling. We were saying that to each other before a while ago that it's such a good feeling to know that you approach something with the complete level of deep commitment and you, you know, you made kind of a song about within yourself that no matter what, you were gonna give everything to this project. And I do think that that's most important of all, you know, that you have that integrity within yourself that you're gonna do everything you can to bring, you know, you're not perfect. We're not perfect. We're not clearly not perfect. And we just do our best. But when you really give everything you have to something, it's a really, really fulfilling feeling, no matter what other people think of it, you know? - Exactly. And you never regret. You never look back and say, I wish I had pushed harder. I wish I had tried. You're just like, that was it. I gave literally all of myself. I gave it everything I had. And I hope you like it. But honestly, I can't say I regret anything. - Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's where I think you want to be as an artist and as a person. And we had that in John Chu for, you know, John Chu the greatest. - And we had that in Steven Schwartz. And we had that with those incredible actresses, you know? So those incredible artists who, you know, Cynthia and Ariana. So and we had that with everyone. Honestly, everyone on this movie. - Myron, Myron Christy and the editor, a gift from the, the heavens, Alice Brooks, gift from the heavens, Chris Scott, our extraordinary choreographer, like these are the most brilliant minds, Nathan. I mean, the costumes, the sets, the this, I mean, it's like, you can't believe what it feels like to have the top of their game working at their absolute maximum artist that they can possibly work towards the same goal and caring and the way that we all cared. - And I think you see that, you feel that in the movies. I do think you feel that in the movies. This sense of deep care, thoughtfulness and care that goes into, you know, every moment. - I'd love to ask like what the conversations were around Dorothy. We never see her face. I think it's quite elegantly done. How did you approach like how you were gonna bring that to life on screen? - We should say also that I assume people know this, but it's also kind of an interesting tidbit, which is that of course we didn't have the rights to the MGM movie. So we were only allowed to touch on things about the Wizard of Oz that had been in a Elfranc bomb book. So we couldn't do certain things and we had to be very careful not to do things that only existed in the movie. And yet most people's understanding of the Wizard of Oz comes from the movie. So we had to make sure that we were, you know, I just thought that was like a really fun challenge to figure out how to have all these little touchstones to the Wizard of Oz in ways that people would recognize but that didn't violate that little rule that we had. So we thought a lot about it from that perspective. I remember Winnie and then why don't you speak to the Dorothy of it all? I just remember that being kind of a cool challenge. - Well, you have to correct me, Dana, if I'm wrong on this, but I don't remember a lot of conversations about Dorothy. I don't feel like we had deep conversations about Dorothy and how she would play in the movie. Because I think that we were, I think we always knew that it was going to be glimpses. Do you know what I mean? But really, which piggybacks on what you just explained. But I don't even think that's the only reason. I think it's because the part of the fun of it to us is that she's this, you just glimps her in the background kind of like that she. - We just loved that there was this epic, extraordinarily important American cinematic masterpiece like casually happening in the background of different jobs. We just thought that was so funny. And so there was, there was an enjoyment and we relished that idea. And so, but I think in terms of the how to show Dorothy, you have to sort of give it to John Chu and Alice Brooks in the way that they decided that they wanted to visually show them. And I just thought it was so smart because it was another, it was a re, it was sort of a reiteration of your theme, Winnie of the Gregory novel being about looking at things in different ways and taking a different perspective on something. And so it almost felt to me important that you not glorify Dorothy because she is not the star of the show. You know what I mean? She's the star of that show. So I just always thought that was, they made all the right choices. And I don't know if I'm right about this, but I remember seeing the house, the early scene of the house falling when they have their cap light in front of the house that's fallen on Nessa. And I remember thinking like, oh, it's like the house is like really kind of like dusty and sort of like sad looking. And I was like, maybe they're gonna like top that up in the visual effects later. And then, and then weeks later, I like woke up from a dead sleep and I was like, it's in black and white. And I was like, oh my god, the house is in black and white. Like the movie, John Nathan, you guys are geniuses. And then I like went back to sleep. And I think that's why they did it. I'm assuming that's why it looks like that. It's because-- - Well, I think it's a nod. I think you're worried again. It's a nod to that. - Yeah, but how cool is that? Like-- - Oh yeah, it's extremely-- - I just love it. I just, and so I think the fans are gonna have such fun trying to find and figure out all those easter eggs the way that they were able to in the first movie. There's even more of them that relate to what Ngervaz in this one. And my other thing about showing Dorothy's face and I don't know if you agree with this, Whitney, but I always think that, you know, in a way, Dorothy's like the MacGuffin. So if you show the MacGuffin, it's never good enough for anybody. It's never the thing that anybody wants in their head. - Yeah, and it takes you out of the movie, especially in our case, because in this case, because that, you know, that brilliant American movie, which is, you know, a great piece of art and a great, one of the great movies of all time, you know, those are indelible images and Judy Garland is indelible. And it's like, when you start, when you start trying to substitute someone in, that to me is the end of fun. Like I don't wanna be looking at someone going, "Oh, that's who they choose." It looks, she looks a little, you know, I want people to be in our story. I mean, as Dana's been saying so well. I mean, I also wanna just say that, you know, the movie itself, so mean so much to so many people and Steven and I are no exception. That movie, the 1939 movie was, you know, was thrilling for us as children. We have such deep memories of it, of watching it as children. So in other words, we were never going to deny the reality of that movie or try to pretend that the movie isn't real. Or that, you know, to us that movie had to remain real. It just had to, as Dana said, so well, had to be in the background. It's in the BG and you're so, you're glimpsing moments of it and, you know, so you never, that's all I'm saying is that I don't think with this was a hard conversation. - And you, Whitney, have been living with this for 20-something years, but this is new to me to be in any kind of rarefied air with the Wizard of Oz. Like I cannot believe that I have touched anything associated with Wizard of Oz and help, you know, been able to hold our own against what is, what I think of as maybe one of the best movies, one without 10 movies of all time. Like again, a gift I will be grateful for for the rest of my life. Like it just feels so special. And as a child, the, you know, my mom saying somewhere over the rainbow to me, that was the lullaby I grew up with as a baby. So that is so deep in my heart and in my soul. And boy was I terrified of those trees. I was like, man, those trees are crazy and I'm never gonna sleep again. The trees were to me, the area than the monkeys. I was like, there's clearly people inside those trees. That's insane. And it led to a lifelong fear of sports mascots. So please enjoy, please enjoy my psyche. - And if you know, if you're looking for an inside thing that nobody really knows, but I'm not even sure, Dana knows this, Steven's, he knows this. For many drafts earlier, earlier drafts before the, the John Chu era, I really wanted talking trees. And I really wanted a talking tree that she talked to and alphabet that was like a confidante of hers. And like an old old tree that was headwistum. And I, you know, because you think to yourself, well, what do I know about us and what do I know about us from the movie? And one of the things is, as Dana brought up that the trees can talk. But I had this other spin on it that they were, that they were a confidante or they were sort of like her only friend, 'cause they're both green. And there was this connection, I thought. Well, anyway, obviously this didn't make it. I didn't have, I didn't crop. - Deep cuts though by Winnie Holtzman. Let me tell you, I think I did read a draft of yours Winnie that had a tree in it that was talking. - Yeah, I mean, I'm just bringing up because you seemed hungry for that. - Oh, I am. - Like little details that nobody else knows about. So I'll just share that. - Yeah, I love that. Well, we are out at time. There's some million things I'd love to ask in addition. We haven't even got into the whisper at the end. I feel like that's gonna become this generation's lost in translation moment. Like it's so beautiful in that we've been so privy to this very intimate relationship. And then the final image is something that's so intimate. It's just between them. I love it, it's perfect. - I just got chills all over my body and I've seen it 20 million times. And there it is. The chills. Doesn't matter if the chills still come. - Oh, I love that. - We've been very honored to be able to do this together. And to, it's been, we feel very lucky, unfortunately. - Yeah. Well, it's been such a joy discussing it all with you guys. And yeah, congrats on the film. Congrats on all this success. And yeah, we'll have to do this again sometime. Maybe our mutual coffee shop that we discovered off there. - Absolutely. - Absolutely. Look us. We'll come back. - And for all your younger writers out there or your older writers who are getting to it later in life, don't give up. All it is is just one rejection after another. It's all just a bunch of rejection and notes and bad news and terrible stuff. And you just have to learn how to love that. Because that is the job. And don't give up. That would be my number one thing. Is the difference between those who make it and those who don't, you just don't give up. - Well said. - Well said. - Very well said. Well guys, I'll let you go. Thank you again so much for coming on script. - Thank you. It was so nice meeting you. - Great to see you. - Bye. (upbeat music) - You've been listening to Script Apart. Thank you so much for tuning in. A reminder that if you want to help the show continue to grow, you can join us on Patreon by visiting patreon.com/Script Apart or clicking the link in today's show notes. Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music) (camera clicking) (camera clicking)