‘Wicked’ star Jonathan Bailey had to join ‘Plumbing’ because he was so hot on ‘Dancing Through Life’

“It wasn’t my catheter.”

The Wicked Witch isn’t the only one who melts a little Evil film adaptation – star Jonathan Bailey was so hot during his epic “Dancing Through Life” number that he had to turn to some eyebrow-raising methods to say cool.

Bailey talks about his fun setup in Weekly entertainment‘s “It Takes a Village” video series in which he, director Jon M. Chucinematographer Alice Brooks, hair and makeup designer Frances Hannon, costume designer Paul Tazewell, visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman, editor Myron Kerstein and choreographer Christopher Scott come together to reveal how they pulled off the standout scene.

“It was so hot in this leather, leather two-piece, I think it was corduroy,” Bailey says of her costume. “I had plumbing downstairs. I connected to an ice cold — I carried around a little bag full of slush — and it was pumped through.”

“I thought you peed in there,” Chu jokes. “It wasn’t my catheter, no,” Bailey replies with a laugh. Jokes aside, Chu recalls finding his star in a rough spot between takes.

Related: Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth reveal their favorite Evil songs – and they’re not what you’d expect

“I remember coming up to you and you had the whole machine hooked up and I was like, ‘Good job, good job!'” And you’re like, ‘I’ve just got to get through this, Jon,'” says Chu. The In the Heights the director says that he decided to leave his star alone, and at that moment, really empathized with him, since he had been a mascot in high school.

Fan-favorite track “Dancing Through Life” serves as Bailey’s character Fiyero’s grand introduction to the students of Shiz, where he tells his fellow students his blunt views of school – which he finds pointless – and instead encourages them to live the “unexamined life”. .”

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The number is huge and immediately stands out as the film’s highlight, with a massive set — Brooks estimated it to be nearly 180 feet long and 145 feet wide, going all the way up to the roof in the center, which is 45 feet high — with three gigantic, rotating bookshelves that the actors, dancers and parkour artists can flip and spin out of.

An estimated 350 people (and 2,000 cans of hairspray!) were used on set to make it all happen—and it was a daunting task because, as Brooks puts it, “We knew that if ‘Dancing Through Life’ works, we have our movie.”

Related: Evil movie stars tease ‘Defying Gravity’ in new clips: ‘There are added elements’

But it was a massive undertaking, not only because of the importance of the scene itself, but because of how risky it could also be. “It’s very dangerous, actually the amount of engineering and people that had to go in to secure this. I mean, insurance alone really wouldn’t have us doing this,” admits Chu.

In fact, Scott wasn’t sure they’d even let their star in the rotating bookcase backdrop, affectionately referred to as the Tornado Wheel, below the stage. “I wasn’t sure they were going to allow Jonathan Bailey in the tornado wheel because of safety, which makes sense because you know he has to keep going because we can’t hurt our Fiyero.”

Watch the video above for more behind-the-scenes secrets about the making of “Dancing Through Life.” Evilalso involved Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle YeohMarissa Bode, Ethan Slater, Peter Dinklageand more, is now in theaters.