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The age-old question of who will be able to adapt the beloved Broadway hit ‘Wicked’ for the screen was finally answered the day Jon M. Chu was brought on board to deliver the wizardly magic behind one of cinema’s most iconic lands, Oz. His world-building vision of this subverted origin story extends to his department heads to craft one all-encompassing saga of female friendship that travels into the psyche of Oz like never before. Offscreen Central had the opportunity to talk with Choreographer Christopher Scott about the extensive process of creating a dance culture for Oz including the movements and the immersive environment, the detailed choreography for scenes like “Dancing Through Life” and “Popular”, and the emotional depth brought by actors like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande to enhance the storytelling.

Jillian Chilingerian: Hi, so nice to meet you.
Christopher Scott: I heard you were at the UTA screening.
Jillian Chilingerian: Yes, yes. I don’t think we met, but I was there.
Christopher Scott: It was a good time. It was so much fun.
Jillian Chilingerian:My co-workers hadn’t seen it yet, so I was happy they got to see it in that experience.
Christopher Scott: Absolutely, oh, that’s so cool.
Jillian Chilingerian: Yeah. So I’m very excited to talk to you about this movie. I’ve seen it five times now. I’m going to go again.
Christopher Scott: I am at 10 times now, so you’re catching up.
Jillian Chilingerian: I have to keep going so I can catch up to you. I always love musicals, because I’ll watch it and I’ll think, like, oh, I can do that dance and then I’ll go home to try something like the What Is This Feeling dance? I tried it so many times, but I couldn’t do it.
Christopher Scott: Take it slow. That’s what I tell people. I think the biggest thing is people want to learn it and do it just go super slow until your body has it. It’s all muscle memory.
Jillian Chilingerian: I’ll keep practicing. I saw the videos with the forks, Christopher Scott: That one’s fun. I teach it very fast on TikTok because that’s the system nowadays. Everybody can slow it down on Tiktok, that’s what I’ve been told but really, take your time.

Jillian Chilingerian: The film is having a cultural moment. I want to start off watching this movie me, and what I took away from Jon’s vision is that he fills in so many blanks about what is Oz for people that maybe are not so into the books. He is bringing that lore cinematically and we are more so as fellow Ozians versus visitors in the Wizard of Oz. How was it coming in and figuring out the Ozian culture? There are so many different places we get to meet with the Munchkins, the Uplands, and the Shiz University students. I love how he brings a psyche to who makes up this land, and who are these people in their movement.
Christopher Scott: No. I love that question because that’s really what it was when I came on board. Jon was constantly talking about world-building and we’ve done a bit of that together and work that we’ve done in the past, but nothing like this. I mean, this is Oz and anything Jon’s doing, his vision is massive, it’s expected to be massive, and he treats it like that. The first thing is like, Okay, let me tap into what world he wants to build and how deep we’re going to go, and it was very clear, very early on, that the whole movie is what happens when you pull the curtain back, and you see what Oz is really about. So it’s like, well, to get in there, we, let’s, let’s pull the curtain back as far as we can. Let’s, let’s dive deep. Um, you know. So for me, my first thing, my first real thought for this was like, how do we build a dance culture that can exist in this thing? When you have these worlds built, you think about Star Trek, you with Klingon and they create a full-on language for these people. Dance is a language so it’s my job to create a movement language that can exist.

For example, the kids at Shiz can come across very much as just like, oh, a fun dance to do, but there’s a lot of detail in there. There’s a lot of purpose. I wanted it to feel like, what do if you’re a kid at university and you’re stressed out all the time? That’s why when they shrug their shoulders, it’s not a dance move, it’s a feeling they have. We’re talking about what loathing feels like? What does it look like? So when they slap the books it’s rhythmic, but I didn’t create it to be rhythmic. I created it to be like, they just can’t control them, and they’re just so frustrated. Every little look and every little thing had a purpose to it, and you also got to create this world that’s built out of the youth being tense. When Fiyero comes in, he can disrupt it with his style from his culture, which is Winkie Country. I looked into what’s Winkie Country about. It is a military base community, that’s where the people join the military. That’s why there’s a lot of rhythmic stomping. I picture boots and how it feels to march and stomp, but Fiyero is the exception to Winkie Country because he likes to shake things up a little bit. It all started first with “Dancing Through Life” That was the first number I went through. It was the first side of building the culture around Fiyero and the military thing was good. So then I went backward and started piecing together the puzzle. For example, once we got to the opening, I dove into “No One Mourns the Wicked”. It was a lot of creative discussions around it, it’s a very different take. There’s no dancing in the Broadway show at this moment, but there was a moment too, where in conversations about it, there are people that are like, I don’t think this makes sense to dance. We had the conversations like, well, what’s the why? Like, why would they dance? I think for me, it was always like, this is a war ending. You know, Elphaba is dead, the town is free of this villain that’s been making them live in fear. And now they’re dead, they can come outside again. And when wars end, in real life, people go on the street and they dance. So it made a lot of sense. So there was, like, a real logic based on why they would dance. Some people love musicals, I’m one of those people, and there are people that don’t, and they’re like, I don’t understand why they start singing and dancing. It’s our job to tell them why, I can’t expect an audience to know why they’re dancing, but that culture was built in. They’re the workers, they’re the artisans, they’re the ones that get the dye to dye the clothes so that’s why when they grab the fabrics, and I wanted to give them a ritual for the changing of the guards, it’s the big shift in their community. For Glinda, I took inspiration from the Broadway show, all these beautiful lifts, if you’re doing Gillikin we’re going to represent it through ballet movements and high society dance. Ballet comes from high society, so it makes sense. Lastly, there is Emerald City. I was like, All right, well what does a metropolitan city look like in Oz? We’re shooting in London and the reality of it is, you have every walk of life there, and that’s what makes it so beautiful. So that’s why, when we’re taking on a journey through Emerald City, you see street dancers, you see Afro dancers. We have some jazz dancers, we have some Vogue-inspired dancers. We kind of just pulled from every style. We have poppers which is not traditionally in a musical movie, but what I love about it so much is we didn’t have to explain ourselves. We don’t have to go tell people that we just want to shake up musicals. We just have to put it in a way that makes sense, that represents what a real city looks like. At the end of the day, though, it’s still Oz so it’s like, you want to create your language and make it familiar, but it has to take the edge off a little bit and try to make it feel otherworldly.

Jillian Chilingerian: It’s so whimsical and so fantasy, but we can make those references to our world. There’s that groundedness, but it’s still that escapism at the same time.
Christopher Scott: Absolutely.
Jillian Chilingerian: What I love so much about this movie is how much the actors embody these characters and give their spin. The story has been around for so long, and there’s been so many different people that have come and gone, in these long lineages of Elphabas and Galindas and all that. I think that’s why this film is hitting so deeply, of people being able to see what Cynthia and Ariana are bringing as well I just love Jonathan Bailey in this movie so much. When you’re working with them on how their Elphaba or their Glinda would move to decide what feels right for the character how do you bring yourself to make sure the actor feels comfortable as well as fulfilling this vision?
Christopher Scott: Yeah, I always think about it. The moves are the final piece of the puzzle. Before that, I have to understand who they are. I might have ideas and stuff that I’ve choreographed to have a beginning before I get to meet them. It’s a lot of work to do, but really, the shaping of the piece comes from sitting down with the actor first, and I asked them to tell me how they want to play their character, how they envision their character, how they’re going to embody their character. They feed me that information, and then I go off of that. I saw the Broadway show eight times for research, but I just remember thinking, like, wow, I know this show so well. When I had the talks with the actors, what they were saying to me about the characters was interesting. It has a lot of nuances that as an audience member from the show, I couldn’t pick up on because we’re not even in it like that. It’s a whole different medium and now I’m sitting there listening to them and talking to them. One of my favorite moments was when Jeff Goldblum explained to me about his character, and he goes because I am a Sentimental Man and I always long to be a father. I was like, oh he’s going to talk through “Sentimental Man”. I’m in a room with Real Deal actors that aren’t messing around. They’re taking these characters very seriously, and they’re building them into however many dimensions they can have, and they’re just feeding it to me, and it was really helpful.
Jillian Chilingerian: When you go to a theater to see the stage musical, it depends on where you’re sitting of what you can see versus how the camera can capture everything and put it right in your face. These intimate moments are in the scope of something big. The words of the music coming from these actors feel so much heavier. That is what happens when this whole world is built out, and the ways you can go past the stage on what you can get emotionally.
Christopher Scott: It’s true. We also knew what movie we were making very specifically. Jon casting Cynthia Erivo, those words are going to also hit differently as a woman of color, just in general. As a choreographer, I’m sitting there, and we’re having all the conversations that you need to have to make sure that we’re telling that story properly through somebody who’s lived this experience. Cynthia would talk a lot about what that felt like and why the movement was never just a move, it had a deep context to it that came from real-life situations. They asked me a lot about how it feels to be a part of something relevant. I’m like unfortunately it’s always been a very pertinent story, but now you have Cynthia Erivo telling it to us on screen with an incredible ability to act while singing at that level. I think that is a very rare gift, both of them, Cynthia and Ariana to see where they can sing and act and move all at the same time like there are triple threats, and then there’s that.

Jillian Chilingerian: Speaking about Cynthia, we have to talk about the OzDust Ballroom, it’s interesting with the tone shift between this and the musical. When you watch the OzDust Ballroom, it’s sad because they’re all bullying her for no reason other than she’s different. What would it feel like if you walked into that room and the way she takes off her hat and the movement she makes? That is the beginning of this love story between the two of them and this whole act of listening as Ariana mentioned that, she learned off of Cynthia that day. The sche goes from the highest of highs of “Dancing Through Life” right into that moment.
Christopher Scott: It started with beautiful conversations with Jon. We’re always talking about what our specific intention we have to create a scenario where we can watch this woman break because she’s been holding it together her whole life. Now you’re going piece by piece, she finally gets her break. She finally feels like somebody saw her, Madame Morrible finally saw the the good in her, and now just when she started to feel good, it’s the last straw. For me, it was the music and the movement had to mean something. There’s this moment where she comes here and the hands twinkle. That reminded me of birds and the reality of it is that is more about her connection to animals. The only people that ever loved her were animals so let’s build upon that. I work very closely with an associate choreographer, and we would go back and forth so I got to understand what it feels like. Working with Cynthia was where the process began because we had to make sure that Cynthia could connect to every piece of movement. If there are any moves that we’re doing that she does not connect with, we’re changing them. We’re going to find them together and it really, it was amazing to watch how everything became the moment. This was the big moment of movement, but to me, the number started when she put that hat down. We’re creating this decision for her to make. Is she taking this hat off and is she going to run, or is she going to make a point now? Finally, she’s had enough. I always kind of had that and I don’t know if Cynthia even interpreted it like that, to be honest, because that’s how I felt. Cynthia made the decision to walk back, and she already had it in her plan and that’s the beauty of it. As a choreographer, I’m like that that can be for the actor to know let me figure it out with the audience.

She chooses the hat, and she’s like, okay, they’re laughing at you. They’re laughing at me, we’re the most similar people in here. Everybody else is the ones that are different at this time, and I’m going to have a moment with you. To me, it was her having a moment with the hat, this hat is a piece of her because of her identity. Before we even get to the love story of Elphaba and Galinda, we’re going to get to the love story of her in this hat, that she’s going to be othered. It’s like there’s such a beautiful thing that they created, all the authors that have touched this piece of story. That’s where it starts for us and then after that part, in my mind, that’s when she’s changed now, she’s had enough. Then you add Glinda and we held off on teaching Ari the choreography until the brush-up rehearsals. She knew a couple of little things, but the two of them, it was an incredible, real moment. It was important to get us that product that we all see now in the film and everybody handled it like that, the dancers too. Huge shout out to the dancers, they didn’t take it lightly. I think 65 dancers are at the Ozdust. I didn’t tell them how we didn’t rehearse the scene before we did our first camera blocking like it was in the rehearsal space, but Cynthia knew what she was doing, and Ari kind of knew what she was doing. The dancers didn’t know anything except that I explained to them the structure, and what was about to happen and Cynthia came in with no music. Jon hasn’t seen it yet and the camp operator is Alice Brooks, and I was like, alright, action and we all lived in this moment with her.

We got to feel what it would feel like for the first time. It was beautiful and the dancers told that story. They were on point. They were laughing at her. We’re all sitting there going, like, Oh my god. This is brutal watching that. It’s not every day you get that level of investment from dancers, but this group of people, everybody knew the gravity of this moment and how important this was.

Jillian Chilingerian: That is her moment, and the silence when she claps her hands brings you into her head space. We see the realization with Glinda, when she’s like, Oh, I got this entire thing wrong as they get to form that bond in front of everyone.
Christopher Scott: Absolutely. Shout out to all the sound design team, the mixers, and all of those brilliant people because when that sound hit, we didn’t get to live that in real life, but I was like, Oh, what a moment. We had our process on the day, and then it was cool too to see the post-production process, because it feels like they just put that same level of care into it, and everybody showed up for this very important moment.

Jillian Chilingerian: How do you keep that integrity and that emotional core that’s on the day you’re filming and pass it off to the people to do that post, and how do they keep that all intact with this film? It’s unbelievable what they pulled off. I also want to get into the world building, because these sets are insane. I wish they were still around. I want to visit them. I want to go to Oz. As a choreographer, what does that mean to you to have so much space to play with? I love like, there’s so much involvement of props from the tulips, the forks, or like, obviously the books. Jonathan Bailey and the books, I love it so much. They’re interacting with their environment even in Cynthia, when she’s running in the field fully taking all of the space up, of what has been created for them. How is it conceptualizing dance in these spaces?
Christopher Scott: There’s so much, so much. It’s true. I’m glad you are seeing that because that’s the hard part with dance, trying to find the reality in it so that I can connect with more people. There’s a level of fantasy to it, but I say it all the time, people come to me like, I don’t like musicals because people don’t dance like that. I’m like, that’s not true. I was like, you don’t see it, I see it all the time because I’m aware. I see people dancing more than you would think. There are so many moments when somebody gets a new job and they’re like, Oh my God. People are frustrated, and that’s a dance to me. Let me set the record straight on one thing in “Dancing Through Life”. The books, those are prop books. We did not check those out from a library and destroy any real pieces of literature. I love a prop, it becomes an extension of a dancer, and it also becomes this element that puts us into reality. A lot of people can relate to the physical world and when you’re in Oz, there’s a lot of fantasy. Every day I would get new props, everyone was so invested in building the world. Going to see everybody else’s department too, I will say I drew a lot of inspiration from that because I wouldn’t get stuff till very late. It was challenging with the sets being that big or challenging because they weren’t available to me until way late in the process. You have hundreds of people painting on it, laying bricks, and hundreds of cranes just working.

Jon is very quick with brand new, brilliant ideas and I’m in that same world where we throw around cool ideas. Nathan Crowley is the same way we’re all the same way. Alice Brooks was like a group of people who throw around a lot of creative ideas, which means things change a lot. When I walked into Paul Tazewell’s costume mega super store, it was so inspiring, you’re walking around seeing the detail that he’s putting in, so then I’m drawing from that. The way the guards are going to feel, it’s so cool, the way the Munchkins, the dresses, the texture is heavy. We’ll talk about stuff too and he takes that in, and then he gives you this thing back and you’re like, Oh, my God, that’s even more insane than I imagined. The props department and the whole production design team, with Nathan Crawley. Jamie from props I would go into their workshop, and see the craziest props that you’re like can I use that? We were turning set decorations into props every day. That’s the kind of environment that we created, and that’s how we got to build the hard world. I’m super proud. It’s a good, crazy group of people, crazy in the best way.

Jillian Chilingerian: I love it when you can tell that everyone has the same vision. The right people were assembled, the whole narrative of, they’ve been trying to do this for 20 years and it’s because we needed Jon Chu. We needed Cynthia, we needed Ariana, we needed everyone else involved.
Christopher Scott: I will say, I’ve been working with John for over 17 years, and he has tapped into this world in a way that I’ve never seen anybody and just me working in this industry for over a decade, and that line, something has changed with him. I think about all the time with him and it was all the decisions he made, I didn’t see them all until I watched the thing. I’m very focused on my world, and that’s what I’m delivering, and I collaborate with all the other departments, but it’s just what he was like unlocking as he went. I don’t think people would know exactly how hard, how difficult a movie like this is to pull off, but as someone like you who knows the history, it’s like, yeah, it took 20 years to crack the code, and it took Jon to put all of us in place to then go forward and tell this story with him.

Jillian Chilingerian: “Dancing Through Life” with the bookcase choreography and I love when Jonathan Bailey is doing the splits. Putting that together seems like a math equation of figuring out where people need to be with the camera to hit their marks with sets not yet built.
Christopher Scott: So when Jon gave me the job, I was at his house he handed me a ‘Wicked; Broadway hat and said are you ready to choreograph Wicked? I was like, yep, took that, put it on. That’s all we needed to say and I drove home from his house listening to “Dancing Through Life”. I’m familiar with the music and I’m a fan of the musical, but now I need to digest it, I need to put the music in my bones. I started with that song because I love that melody and the meaning. I’m a dancer, so, I already love it because it says the word dancing in it. I’m choreographing before we even know Jonathan Bailey is our Fiyero but getting up on that desk, sliding the boat, kicking the things of rhythms, it’s the easiest one for me to embody, because that’s probably the most of my DNA that I’ve put into the into the film. When you get Jonathan Bailey, I’m doing all this stuff knowing that I don’t know him I’ve heard the best things. Everybody’s like, no, he’s amazing, great. But I’m skeptical until I meet them and he comes into the room and we’re talking about this gymnastics background. First, we’re talking about the character, and he breaks it and that’s what I love about him. He took that character and he broke it down. He didn’t come in as, like, brainless happy-go-lucky. A lot is happening behind those eyes and we got into that first, and they’re like, Okay, gymnastics, what are you doing? He’s like, I mean, I have a back handspring layout, very crazy.
Jillian Chilingerian: The way he gets off his horse.
Christopher Scott: He got that front walkover, I just never forget what he did. I was like, what’s happening 100% where I don’t know yet, and I was gonna save it for the end. I remember one day, we were reshaping the little intro part. We’re just having fun with it. I’m just like try it there, and he just does this. We’re just dying laughing.

We worked very closely with another associate choreographer, Emilio Dossal, and our assistant choreographer, Leah Hill, and it was like all hands on deck finding parkour performers, because I had to figure out who can even thrive in this environment because it’s hard, and a testament to the dancers we talked about the parkour element. I also did throw dancers in there, and they are fully dancing in there. With the insurance, they’re like, I don’t think they could do it and I’m sending them footage of Jonathan Bailey, I had to send them footage of what it is with Emilio before we can put Jonathan in there. We want to put Ethan in and then I had to send them footage of Ethan climbing up ladders as they are moving. They’re like, Okay, fine.

Jillian Chilingerian: Did the live singing aspect affect anything with the movement?
Christopher Scott: It honestly never affected me. When we’re talking you always go, like, Okay, do I have to, like, change movement to make sure that they can sing because I’ve done that in the past. I’ve had to do that every once in a while, but this group, they’re just so good. I didn’t even have to think about it. It’s a testament to their talents for sure. Jeff singing, everybody’s singing live, and you’re just like, Thank God, I don’t have to worry about that element. The music team is incredible, everybody’s tapped in. They were always with the dancers, making sure that they sounded good. They’re not singers. We did not hire them as singers. They don’t need to be singers, but that’s how much everybody cares. Everybody’s from the Broadway world in that department, and that was such a gift for the film, because, by the end, there’ll be times I’m listening to the dancers, it’s just another level of getting them to invest and getting them to live in this moment and be real.

Jillian Chilingerian: Something else I love about this film is that if you are a fan of the musical you go in with that one song you are ready to hear and then discover a love for another song. I was never a big “Dancing Through Life” person, but then now that’s all that I want to listen to. I love “Popular”. I’ve watched Ariana since I was a child. In that number, she is infusing that comedic sensibility into her movements as Glinda uses the props and the room to be playful with it. What was it like to craft that with her?
Christopher Scott: It’s a lot of work and we had to do it, but it honestly felt like the lunch break, the “Popular rehearsal”. Ari comes in every day, she’s done so much in her life, and she has an extraordinary life outside of this, outside of this bubble that now we’re all in together in Oz. Never did I ever feel that from her. She came in ready to work and ready to have fun and explore and experiment. When she said, I’m going to take care of Glinda when she got that audition she meant that with her whole heart, and she delivered, because I watched her do it, and I feel very lucky to have been able to have a front row seat to that process. Not only the character, but she also took good care of the lineage of this character. I mean, there would be certain things that she’d be like, we gotta do that for Kristen, but she knew the balance because she owes us her own version too. I know how big of a moment that was but it weirdly, didn’t carry the same pressure as everything, because it was like she’s funny. It became a playground and Jon gave fun things for us to play with. I mean, his ideas with Nathan and Paul and the whole special effects team, it was again this group of people building. Paul Tazewell’s costumes. I thought were so fantastic. That outfit became like an extension of Glinda. I’m so proud of her, and we laughed a lot. There were days where we cried laughing, and Ari’s mascara was just all down her face, and we’re just like, wow, I really, I can’t believe I get to do this right now. It’s crazy.
Jillian Chilingerian: I love her Tiktok she posted up the chandelier with the Beyonce song.
Christopher Scott: Let me tell you, that was one of those moments where everybody’s like, are we going too far? The first time she went up there and did it, we’re all just like, No, we’re not. This is perfect because she knows that line.

Jillian Chilingerian: Well, thank you so much for this very in-depth conversation on all of the choreography, all of the movement. As I said, I’m such a big fan of the movie, and so this was so much fun to get to talk with you about it all.
Christopher Scott: Well, thank you for all your thoughtful questions and all the care you’re putting into understanding this movie, because I think it’s really beautiful, and a lot of it’s easier to talk when I’m talking to somebody that cares. So thank you.

Wicked is available on demand.
You can find our review of the film here.