Jeff Goldblum thinks there are big parallels between his Wonderful Wizard of Oz from ‘Wicked’ and the Grandmaster from ‘Thor: Ragnarok’.
The 72-year-old actor stars in the musical blockbuster as the deceitful wizard, and has now compared the part to that of his Marvel Cinematic Universe role - who manipulates those around him to maintain his hedonistic lifestyle on the planet Sakaar - as both characters are “abusers of power”.
Talking about the wizard in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Goldblum explained: “Everything you do leaves its residue in your nervous system and in your heart somewhere.
“I wanted to make this distinct, but [the Grandmaster] had some kind of avatar of himself and is a self-glorifying nincompoop. And he's an abuser of power and has a position of authority.”
In ‘Wicked’, the wizard shifts blame for his hate campaign against the animals in Oz onto Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), causing the witch to become public enemy number one and tearing her friendship with Glinda (Ariana Grande) apart.
With the wizard being terrified of Elphaba’s real magic, Goldblum hopes audiences will latch onto ‘Wicked’s concepts of what real power is.
He said: "Real power is not just a position of authority, but as we see in this movie, something having to do with the connection to yourself and the ability to make beautiful things and impact others. That’s real power.”
The ‘Jurassic Park’ star concluded ‘Wicked’s story about good versus evil in a struggle for control was “timeless”.
He said: “Around the world there are many circumstances where not the most enlightened path is taken by leadership and others. Here we are again in this situation of the movie where I say, ‘You got to give somebody a real good enemy.’”
‘Wicked’ - which is based on the Broadway musical of the same name - is the first of two parts, with director Jon M. Chu already finished filming for the sequel.
The filmmaker explained he chose to make ‘Wicked’ a two-parter because he found he had to “rip out songs” from the musical when trying to squeeze it all into one movie.
Chu told Deadline:”It was also the most obvious thing to do because every time we tried to make it one movie, you had to rip out songs.
“If we’re ending up on [the song] ‘Defying Gravity’, then we need to move backwards from ‘Defying Gravity’.”
The second ‘Wicked’ film is slated to hit cinemas on 21 November 2025.
