Jeff Goldblum is prone to getting emotional while watching himself in some of his most famous roles. “I’m sorry to be so mushy, but you got me going with that Independence Day, and this kills me—this show just kills me,” he says during Vanity Fair’s Scene Selection video series, tearfully watching footage of his upcoming performance as the notorious Wizard of Oz in Wicked.
Before clinching the coveted role in Jon M. Chu’s big-screen reimagining of the hit musical, which stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as good witch Glinda, Goldblum saw the original Broadway production led by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. “I was a mess,” he recalls. “I didn’t know what it was. Somebody said, ‘Oh, there’s a hot ticket,’ and I went in. I had been such a fan for the movie [1939’s The Wizard of Oz]…I don’t know what it is about that primal thing—going home, or Judy Garland, or that whole movie—it just gets me. I’ve shown my kids that movie, and I’m very emotional at that movie. Then Stephen Schwartz’s music…that show just knocks me out. By the end of it, I was an emotional wreck. I didn’t know they were gonna be best friends. I was wailing, I think, as people were going out of the theater.”
Goldblum joined the Wicked films—part one debuts on November 22 this year, while part two hits theaters on November 26, 2025—after unknowingly meeting one of its leading ladies. As he tells VF, Goldblum met an 11-year-old Grande following a performance of his 2005 Broadway play, The Pillowman. “I was doing this thing at the Booth Theatre, and she saw productions with her mom,” says Goldblum. “She has pictures of the two of us backstage after, you know, signing autographs. Now, working with her, to play that part, [she’s] absolutely incredible,” he continues, calling both Grande and Erivo “out of this world.”
The film’s cast also includes Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Fellow Travelers star Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Tony nominee Ethan Slater as Boq, and newcomer Marissa Bode as Nessarose, as well as Emmy winner Peter Dinklage as Doctor Dillamond and Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang as a fellow Ozian. Goldblum says his take on the Wizard is “a little different” from what audiences have come to expect from the part. “I’m kind of a [Nikola] Tesla character who’s invented the 20th century, in a way, in this parallel universe, and movies and mythmaking, et cetera, et cetera,” he says. “At another time, I’ll gush about it further, as you can imagine.”
Goldblum also delves further back into his five-decade career for VF, sharing what it was like to work with Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park; what he misses about William Hurt, his late costar in The Big Chill; and what to expect from his new Netflix series, Kaos. Watch the whole video above.
