How one evil character becomes the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz

array, array Spoilers for Act 2 of the Broadway musical Wicked, which is being adapted into Wicked: For Good – lies ahead! Stop reading if you want Avoid spoilers!

In the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz,” Judy Garland's Dorothy Gale is flanked by three companions as she travels down the yellow brick road to meet the Wizard of Oz (four, if you count her loyal pup Toto, who traveled with her from Kansas to Oz). These friends and protectors are known as the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) and the Tin Man (Jack Halley), and while Dorothy wants to ask the wizard to send her home, the Lion, the Bird and the Bird and the Tin Man have their work cut out for them. order. The Lion wants to ask him for courage, the Scarecrow would really like a brain, and as for the Tin Man, he just wants a working heart.

You're probably familiar with these characters because, well, “The Wizard of Oz” is one of the most famous movies of all time … but as the Tin Man factors into “Wicked,” Jon M. Chu's epic two-part Broadway musical of the same name adaptation? (The Wizard of Oz, on the other hand, apparently actually takes the story of the “evil,” I should clarify that the musical is actually based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which is darker than the musical but still serves as its source.) A character we've already met in the movie ” 'Wicked: Part One' will actually become the Tin Man, and it's a tragic tale – so here's what to watch when the second 'wicked' movie, 'Wicked: For Good” comes out later this year.

When we meet Boq in “Wicked: Part One,” we immediately realize that he hails from Munchkinland—mainly because he has to stand on top of a stack of books at Shiz University to face off with his romantic rival, Prince Fiyero Tigelaar (Jonathan Bailey). – And he's played by Ethan Slater, an actor known for his roles in Broadway shows like The Spongebob Musical and Spamalot. (Nowadays Slater is also (Known for his ongoing real-life relationship with Ariana Grande-Butera, who plays Galinda the hillbilly in Wicked and received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role.) Boq is sweet, seemingly shy, and carries a pretty obvious torch for Galinda, who charms him to the point, where she keeps forgetting his name (she calls him “bick” like a whole bunch of times). When Galinda figures this out, she strangely tells Boq that he should ask Nessarose Thropp (Marissa Bode), the younger sister of unpopular Shiz student Elphab (Cynthia Erivo, who also earned an Oscar nod in the lead category), leaving Galinda free to continue romancing Fiyero.

BOQ seems to understand on some level that Galinda is providing Nessarose as a distraction, but that doesn't mean he's cruel to Nessarose; In fact, he's her date when a whole bunch of Shiz students rain down to go dance at the Stardust Ballroom, and he's very serious about making sure she has a good time. Unfortunately, BOQ's connection to Nessarose is ultimately his downfall – and helps explain how he becomes the Tin Man.

Nessarose truly loves Boq, but the way she shows it in the second act of the “evil” musical is, frankly, not greatIn the area at the end of the first act of the Musical (which we have already seen on screen in “Wicked: Part One”), Elphaba escapes from the Emerald City under the Duress, just after she discovers that the dean of the Sorceress Morible (Michelle Yeoh) of Shizu University Yeoh) Dean) (Michelle Yeoh) Dean) (Michelle Yeoh) Dean). and the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) are both Cahoots and evil frauds. As Elphaba escapes, she sings the show's 11th act closer to “defying gravity,” reluctantly leaving her best friend — who now makes her name as just “Glinda” — behind as she tries to leave Oz and escape the chase, and as the film closes closing , We see that the Moribrible Morible stage is a full PR campaign, announcing that Elphaba is the enemy of all good in Oz. As Nessarose and her and Elphab's father, Governor Thropp (Andy Nyman), listen to her announcement, Governor Thropp collapses, and in Act 2 of the musical, we learn that he died (shock, presumably).

When Nessarose takes control of Munchkinland as governor (in place of her father), she becomes a tyrannical leader – which is especially bad news for Boqam, who finds himself imprisoned in the land and faces a civil rights crisis because Nessarose wants to hang on to the Man she loves so much. loves When Elphaba shows up to try to reason with her sister, things go from bad to worse, especially where BOQ is concerned.

When she discovers that her sister has become the cruel ruler of Munchkinland (and that her love for BOQ has turned toxic), Elphaba tries to do something kind for her sister, but it completely backfires. We see in “Wicked: Part One” that Elphaba and Nessarose's mother, Melena (Courtney Mae-Briggs), left behind a pair of silver shoes, and Elphaba enchants them—turning them a ruby ​​red process—to help Nessarose walk without the aid of her wheelchair. . It is extremely important to note here that while Nessarose is usually played by an able-bodied actor on stage, Marissa Bode is the first wheelchair user to ever play the role. In September 2024, Bode stated Diversity That this particular moment will be different in the second “Wicked” film, announcing that “authentically casting and showing an authentic disabled person is very important, but it's also very important how we are shown. I am definitely very happy with the changes that have been made. “

No one but Bode and Jon M. Chu quite knows how this will change in “Wicked: For Good,” but the point of the musical is that Boq, seeing Nessarose walking, suddenly decides that she no longer “needs” him and try to leave her to leave to leave her and try to leave her and try to leave her and try to leave her and try to leave her and try to leave her and try to leave her and try to leave him and tries to leave him ” to be with Glinda. Before long, Nessarose casts a spell that is supposed to hold Boq by focusing on his heart, but all she ends up doing is shrinking his heart because it belongs to Glinda. To save her life, Elphaba casts her spell, turning Boq into a tin man (so that he no longer requires a heart to stay alive).

BOQ appears in both L. Frank Baum's original 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked, but when Stefan Schwartz and Winnie Holzman adapted the latter for the stage, they decided to make one big change: Boq became ” composite character,” meaning they combined Boq's story with the Tin Man to give his narrative more dramatic weight. (Boq is actually a very wealthy citizen of Munchkinland in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and even lets Dorothy and Toto stay in his huge house during the adventure.) Also, in the books, Tin Woodman is a character called Nick, who calls Nick Nick Chopper, but that all changes in the musical “evil”, making BOQ a much more tragic character. (At least he's not alone – Fiyero is transformed into his yellow brick road friend, the Scarecrow.)

In “Wicked: Part One,” we is In a major clue regarding Boq's future – his last name is “Woodsman”, a pretty clear reference to L. Frank Baum's character known as the “Tin Woodman”. After becoming the Tin Man, Boq in the musical is filled with rage and desperate for revenge against Elphaba, blissfully unaware that the spell that transformed him actually saved his life; In the musical number “Witch Hunters' March”, boq as the Tin Man rallies the citizens of Oz to hunt down the so-called “Wicked Witch of the West” and destroy her for good. If “Wicked: For Good” follows the musical as faithfully as “Wicked: Part One,” we'll see Boq's Heel turn when it comes out on November 21, 2025; As for the first film, it is now available to rent or buy on digital platforms.