Bernie Telsey has been in charge of casting Wicked on Broadway since the musical’s humble beginnings 25 years ago, before it birthed a generation of women who could belt an F5. So you’d think when casting the Wicked films, it would be a veritable walk down the yellow brick road. Not so much, reveals the longtime casting director: “We saw close to 300 women between both witches over the course of that year and a half.”

His team saw everyone from pop stars to former Wicked stage witches, to actors as far afield as Australia. Says Telsey: “There was an intention to get a fresh take, to get a modern take: How do we bring these legacy roles that were so brilliantly played by [Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth] into 2025, 2026?”

It took way longer than a clock tick, but they succeeded. The casting team for the Wicked films recently made the shortlist for this year’s Oscars, in the inaugural Academy Award for Achievement in Casting. After a round of voting, five nominees will be selected to advance to the 98th Academy Awards, which will be held March 15 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. As a prominent figure in the Broadway community and co-artistic director of Off-Broadway’s MCC Theater, Telsey hopes to be able to add “Oscar nominee” to his list of titles. He also sees this new category at the Academy Awards as a sign of just how visible casting as a profession has become.

Below, Telsey breaks down the rigorous casting process for Wicked, the cast member he’s particularly proud of getting onto the project, and how he hopes the Tony Awards will one day recognize casting directors. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

From what I heard of the casting process for the Wicked leads specifically, there were a lot of actors who really wanted to do it, and so they kind of put themselves up—like Ariana. Were you able to give input on who you wanted to bring in?
Bernie Telsey: When we started casting the movie, the directive from Marc Platt, the producer, Universal [the production company], and even [director] Jon Chu was: We want the two best people, and we truly do not care where they come from. It could be musical theatre, it could be Broadway, it could be regional theatre, it could be movies, it could be television. It could be pop stars. Find the two best people, and let's use the casting process to find that. And that's what was true from the beginning.

So of course, when [Tiffany Little Canfield] and I started to put it out there, we had all our own ideas from years of working in the musical theatre world, film, and television. And the ages are young, so let's see all the people who are just graduating from the musical theatre schools, and let's go down the pop star list.

So we put people like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana on lists. And then when we started talking to agents, yes, Ariana was someone whose team and herself was putting herself out there: “Yeah, I would love to be seen. I would love to be considered.” And you know, God bless her, because we said to everyone, “You're gonna have to come in and audition. This is a journey. We’re making two movies. And the journey that these two characters are going through is even deeper, longer, and more dramatic than the Broadway show. So everyone's going to have to come in.”

God bless Ariana, she was like, “I'm in. You need to see me once. You need to see me three times. You need to see me four times. I'm in. I want to be part of the process.”

Even with Cynthia, we were very clear that we wanted to see her. I knew her, obviously, from [the 2015 Broadway revival of] The Color Purple. And she had done other concerts that I was involved in, and she's such a wonderful actress, and we all know about her fierceness and her Joan of Arc-ness. But it was like, “You're going to have to come in and show that beginning part of the journey, the more vulnerable side of Elphaba.” And she also came in. I applaud all the women who came in because it was really enlightening.

We all know of the other contenders for Glinda. What were the most notable other contenders for Elphaba?
Oh, we don't like to speak of that. Because it's so private, and then somebody feels left out. And I don't even think some of the stuff that was in the press about Glinda, to be honest, is complete. It was more than those one or two women that I've read that were mentioned.

But were there other past Glindas and Elphabas that were considered?
There were some people who had done it in the theatre world that made it to the finals, definitely.

Was it harder in some ways than casting the original?
Oh my God, yes. In the original, Kristin Chenoweth was attached to the piece before we were. When we started doing early readings and testing out a few women for Elphaba, obviously Idina was somebody everybody knew from Rent and Aida, and so she was a natural person to try. But the movie, oh, it took so much longer! Because everybody wanted to be seen. Not everybody wants to be seen for a new Broadway show that's in development. And because we had the global access that you don't have for a reading of a musical—we saw people in Australia and Europe and London. And we flew to California. We wanted to give everybody a shot, and make everyone feel like it could be theirs.

And yet you can’t tell me who the former Wicked witches are? You're killing me here!
[laughs] Great women. That's what I could say. Really, really great women.

Why wasn't there a Norbert Leo Butz cameo in the films?
I know, right! [laughs] I mean, that's true. Why wasn't he there? Obviously, it was shot in London, so that's hard, and you don't want to do too much of [cameos]. It wasn't my decision, but I do remember the day that Marc Platt and [composer] Stephen Schwartz and Jon Chu said, “We have to have Kristin and Idina.” Which made sense. I mean, listen, I'm Norbert's biggest fan and have been on so many projects with him, and that would have been lovely. But I think it was about Elphaba and Galinda. So let's stay there and not overdo it.

One more fun question: Are you really proud of yourself for casting Ethan Slater as Boq, since he and Ariana are now a couple?
I like the first part of the question! I really am proud that we got someone from our theatre world. Obviously we know Ethan from [SpongeBob SquarePants, The Broadway Musical] and from a bunch of theatre stuff. So again, when Marc and Jon were like: “We want you to bring in your favorite people.” You got somebody from London, Jonathan Bailey, and then you got somebody from Broadway and Off-Broadway, Ethan. And I love that because it's a huge break for him. And then you get an unknown like Marissa Bode, who has never done anything necessarily, because she just got out of school. So yes, personally, I love that for Ethan. And he nailed it on his first audition. He brought so much drama in the second film. And, you know, great for them that they're together! How many things do we watch on stage and film and TV that then people become couples?

Has the casting of the Wicked film now affected how you think about casting Wicked the stage show? I noticed Lencia Kebede became the first full-time Black Elphaba on Broadway right after the movie came out.
Yes, I mean, something like this movie—where the response has been so positive, and it's been seen by so many people, and so many people are embracing it—everything becomes easier. Then there's more people, whether it's people of color or whether it's just people who didn't think they wanted to do Wicked because it was 25 years old. Now it feels like it’s two years old. So anything that is popular in another medium helps. It does feel like we're getting a lot more interest, I don't mean from stars because Wicked on Broadway has never been about that, but we are getting access to people who are, like, raising their hand or finding us.

Now that the Oscars has a casting category, are you hoping for a Tony Awards casting category?
I mean, we would love that. Obviously, we have the Emmy Awards, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Independent Spirit Awards. It starts with educating. There's definitely committees in charge of who makes those decisions, and it would be us having to make a formal ask and try to educate and try to explain why. That's how it started with the Academy. It took a few years and there's a process, and we respect that and understand that.

I'm sure there's a lot of different crafts that are asking for [an awards category]. You know, the stunts were asking for the Oscars and they said yes to the stunts; they'll be in the 2027 awards ceremony. Why not include more people? It only brings that much more attention to the project. So now you could have 10 Tony nominations or 10 Oscar nominations—so there's another win for your show. I think of it as a good marketing tool and a good business tool.

What I love about the Academy is we have this bake off [with the short list]. So we're educating voters, and they're all going to watch videos of each of the 10 short-listed casting directors, and it explains what they did. And everyone's asked the same question, so it's a fair game. And they've done that for years. They've done it on the sound branch, they've done it on a lot of the branches to educate people on how to vote. So it's not a popularity contest. And we could do the same thing with the Tonys, right? The world has changed, and now everybody understands what casting is because it's become so much more of a profession, with the help of the Emmys and just the help of the articles that have been out there in the world. So I think for an audience, I think they would love it because everybody thinks they're a casting director. And everybody is, to some extent, right? Because you watch a project and you're like, ‘I'm thinking of so and so here. Oh, Gone With the Wind is becoming a musical. Everyone would start writing who they think should be Scarlett O'Hara.’ So why not make an award to those people who are actually doing the work?