Interviews with Cast Members of Wicked

Alex Khadime: I play the role of Elphaba in Wicked, so I' m the green girl, evidently.

Interviewer: How long does it take to put your make-up on?

AK: Roughly on average about thirty to forty minutes it takes to do the make-up. We use a water-based paint, which makes it easier I suppose to get off, it' s not a grease-based one it' s a water-based one. Originally it was taking me forever, I was like, why isn' t this stuff coming off! No I' m joking! It' s quite quick now because I' ve got the right removers and the right cleansers and things like that. It probably takes, I don' t know, about fifteen minutes. It does rub off a little bit, but you know the girls are backstage, Georgia' s backstage, helping me out and touching me up if it kind of tends to start rubbing off a little.

I: And you always have help doing your make-up, every evening, every performance?

AK: Yes, I do. I think I' d be really horrible at it, if I did it myself. But Georgia' s great. So basically I' ve just started to put my main colour on green. It goes all over my face, in my ears and I also do my hands. You notice that my nails are painted as well green, they have to be painted. So now I' m just starting to put on my lip. I literally, what I tend to do is line my lip first, then fill in with the colour green that matches. Georgia' s actually powdering me so that the colour stays and dries. Georgia' s probably going to highlight my cheeks. She highlights with a day glow, is it called day glow? It' s a day glow, a kind of UV, sort of, on my cheeks - again still green! My actual greens that I use, there' s three different greens mixed together to get the greens that they wanted. So it' s different for me as opposed to the different Elphabas who' ve played it round the world. Georgia' s now giving me a little blusher and it' s a purple colour which I suppose gives me a little more structure to my face. My eyes where she highlights my brow and makes it all stand out a little bit more. Now she' s filling an eye shadow with a purpley colour again. In act two though I tend to have a little bit of black, slightly more of an older looking Elphaba, this is the more fresh younger looking Elphaba. I' m going to quickly powder my hand so I can do my other hand. Georgia' s now doing my eyebrows. It' s just a black that she uses to do my brow. Now just mascara obviously just to bring out the eyes and that' s pretty much it. Once I' ve done my hands, and I let them dry a little, I' ll be pretty much done make-up wise. Someone comes to help me get dressed in all my stuff so I don' t get green on everything. I' m now having my wig put on, there we go. This wig has been specifically made for me so it fits correctly. They' re using a glue to keep down the wig lace, as you can see here, so it' s literally just stuck down to my face. All these little things that you don' t get to see, like putting on the make-up how long that takes, making all the costumes how long that takes, that' s quite something.

Jeremy Legat: I play Boq, who is a Munchkin with a big heart who pretty much mounts this campaign to win Glinda' s heart.

Interviewer: And you play other minor characters in the show?

JL: I mean very, very briefly and very minor characters. Myself and some of the other principals are hidden in the ensemble for the opening number just to boost the sound, boost the ensemble.

I: How many costume changes do you have overall in the show?

JL: I think it' s about seven, I think I have about six costumes and changes of varying speeds, about seven of them.

I: And which is the quickest one you have to do between characters?

JL: Well the quickest one I have to do is actually the first one, when like I said I' m hidden in the ensemble. I have a huge mob coat and a hat and a wig there to disguise me so that people don' t recognise me for when I come on thirty seconds later as Boq. I literally have to charge off-stage; coat, boots, hat off into this costume actually and I have a dresser who helps me. It' s as much choreographed off-stage as it is on-stage it has to be so it can go to speed and I can get on-stage on time.In any show, not just Wicked, a costume designer, as much as us the actors, are trying to create a community. In Wicked different communities, you have all of us who are in Shiz University. This is what I wear for Shiz. All the costumes are variations on this pattern, this design, this colour. A little quirk of Wicked is that things are slightly off kilter, because, you know, in Oz, at the moment things are slightly off kilter. But then later in the witch hunter scene and the Emerald City. Again costumes relate to each other, as indeed the actors relate to each other. You' re building this sense of community.

I have nine costume changes, but only seven actual different costumes. I start off in this costume here which is Glinda at her most powerful, her most public figure, so it' s the hugest costume that I wear, it has quite a large queenly ruff, and very big sleeves, a huge skirt, it' s very corseted, and it' s completely full length, and this is what' s known as the bubble frock, this is the one that I fly in. This is at the end of her story; we go back in time to her school uniform. Which is like a Chanel number, complete with bag, she always has a bag, when she hasn' t got a wand she got a bag, very important with the accessories, it has a full kick skirt, it moves so beautifully, really goes with the character. At the beginning when she' s younger, and when she' s a student, she' s very couture, but it' s softer, the hemlines are quite short, and shoulders are quite narrow. This is every girl' s first party flock, or it should be, again you have the heavily beaded handbag, this is her going out type of outfit, very ruffly, when you move, it kicks out, it moves fantastically, there' s a pair of shoes that go with it, sparkly high heels shoes, these are really high and very narrow. A great piece of advice I had at the beginning of my career, ask for your shoes as soon as you possibly can, because the way that you stand in your heels, or a pair of strongly constructed shoes, is going to be completely different form how you stand in a pair of flipflops, adjusts your character quite a lot. Then I go to the Emerald City where everything is green apart from me, the hemlines are getting longer, more important I guess, she' s going somewhere where she is hoping to be a public figure, she' s hoping to be noticed, so it' s slightly grander and a little less frilly than the stuff she' s worn before, as she gets more important it' s the ancient thing, the skirts got bigger, the more important you were, by the end of it, she' s got huge long skirts, which are quite wide. Then we go into Act Two, by this point, she is a public figure, she' s become very much a spokesperson, this is what I like to call my Eva Peron outfit, it' s in two pieces, the skirt is, as you can see, is getting fuller and slightly longer, it' s got a huge train on the back which is like a rainbow, which I love. Everything in Oz is slightly lop-sided, there' s only one arm to the top, what you can see hanging up there there' s a glove for my other arm, everything is slightly off centre, even the crowns that go with the other dresses, they don' t quite fall centre, they shoot off in different directions, they' re quite cool. Already, the collars are getting bigger, shoulders getting wider, Waists are getting narrower, and she' s getting grander. I then get engaged, I have an engagement party, this is her first full ball dress, it' s along the same lines as the bubble dress, she' s getting there, she' s growing up, she' s becoming more of a public figure, it' s the green of Oz, and it has this lovely thing, I used to love this when I was a little girl, that slashed open thing, looks like you have the underskirt, a slashed open bodice and then finally she' s goes back into the bubble dress, with the huge wand and the huge crown and she' s finally made it into her public figure.