Is Bowen Yang in ‘Wicked?’

The upcoming movie Wicked, based on the stage musical of the same name, which is itself based on a 1995 book inspired by the classic The Wizard of Oz, has been a long time in the making. Gregory Maguire’s novel tells the story of Elphaba aka The Wicked Witch of the West. Now that there’s a movie coming out, a lot of people are curious about the cast and whether Bowen Yang is in it.

Besides the Yang question, the movie stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp; Ariana Grande as Glinda Upland; Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible; Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz and Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tigelaar, among others.

The film was originally supposed to come out in 2019 but got shelved in favor of another Broadway-based production: Cats. Then it was supposed to come out in Dec. 2021 but the pandemic put a stop to production.

Who is Bowen Yang?

Bowen Yang, 33, is an actor, comedian and writer best known as a cast member of the popular late-night sketch show Saturday Night Live. He started as a writer on that show and became an on-air cast member on the show’s 45th season.

He’s the first Chinese-American and Australian-American cast member on the show. He’s also the only SNL featured cast member to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy. In addition to SNL, Yang has appeared on Girls5Eva, The Other Two, Ziwe and Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.

Bowen has had an interesting road to stardom. He knew he was gay from a very young age, he said, and he knew that back then he would probably get kicked out of his house if he came out. So he didn’t. His father found out he was gay when Bowen was a teen because he left a chat window open on the computer.

His father made him take conversion therapy, and he went along with it to appease his parents. He said he eventually came to understand that the therapy “was coming out of this true moment of desperation for people in my family where they didn’t understand what this was. They thought they were putting care into the situation when really it wasn’t a caring situation. …”

He said the experience led him to understand that no matter how difficult a situation happens to be, there’s always a way to get through it “without completely obliterating yourself.” Yang’s star has been steadily rising, and appearing in Wicked is only going to raise his profile. The future looks bright for Yang, but who does he play in the movie?

Who does Bowen Yang play in ‘Wicked’?

Yang will play Elphaba and Galinda’s classmate Pfannee (pronounced fan – ey) at Shiz University in Wicked. In the source material, Pfannee is from Munchkinland and she’s described as diminutive, but not poor like most other short Munchinkinlanders.

Pfannee doesn’t have a huge part in the musical but she’s wary of Elphaba and her green skin and plays a prank on her by inviting her to her summer home Caprice-In-The-Pines by pretending to be Galinda. As of now, that’s pretty much all we know about Yang’s character.

How they’re going to handle Pfannee in the movie isn’t known just yet, but we’ll probably get a better idea as we inch closer and closer to Nov. 27 release date.