Colman Domingo will see you in Oz.
The Oscar-nominated actor has been tapped to voice the Cowardly Lion in “Wicked: For Good.” The announcement was made Monday in a short clip shared by both the movie’s and Domingo’s Instagram accounts, which show the Emmy winner hiding behind an adorable lion plush before the reveal.
In an interview published last week in Deadline, “Wicked: For Good” director Jon M. Chu played coy about the identity of who he’d cast for the part in the second installment of his musical adaptation.
“Man, wait until the red carpet when the actor who gave us the Cowardly Lion’s voice steps foot on it,” he said to tease the then-secret casting. “It’ll be wild.”
He did, however, reveal that he approached the “celebrated actor” — who we now know is Domingo — by sliding into his DMs.
“I was like, ‘It’s not a ton of lines, but maybe you have a little time. I know you’re busy. I’ll come to you,’” Chu said about their exchange on Instagram. “He was like, ‘Why the f— not, let’s go!’ And then we went ahead and recorded the lines.”
Famously one of Dorothy’s traveling companions in L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and its various adaptations, the Cowardly Lion is introduced in “Wicked” as a caged young cub that is brought to Shiz by a new professor after the school bars all animals from teaching classes. An enraged Elphaba helps the lion cub escape. “Wicked: For Good,” which is set years after the events of the first film, will see that cub all grown up.
“Wicked: For Good” stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande once again as Elphaba Thropp and Glinda Upland, respectively, at a time when they are known as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. Also returning from “Wicked” are Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero), Jeff Goldblum (The Wizard), Michelle Yeoh (Madame Morrible), Ethan Slater (Boq) and Marissa Bode (Nessarose).
The movie will hit theaters Nov. 21.
