Jonathan Bailey Was Learning Wicked Choreography in His Bridgerton Dressing Room (Exclusive)

Jonathan Bailey is dancing through life — and a ton of different Hollywood projects. 

“He was literally shooting Bridgerton and learning the choreography on his days off,” recalls Ariana Grande, his costar in movie musical Wicked. “He was flying in, having a dance rehearsal and then flying back.”

Corrects Bailey, 36: “Waddling back.” 

Adapted by director Jon M. Chu from the hit Broadway musical, Wicked: Part One (in theaters Nov. 22 with Part Two due in 2025) stars Grande, 31, as Glinda the Good Witch alongside Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, and Bailey as Winkie prince Fiyero Tigelaar. The British actor’s big musical number, “Dancing Through Life,” makes up one of the movie’s most dance-heavy sequences. 

As PEOPLE’s special issue about all things Wicked explains, Bailey rehearsed Fiyero’s dances in between filming both Bridgerton in London and historical romance Fellow Travelers in Canada. “I’ve got videos on my phone of me practicing on long-haul flights” between continents, he says. 

“Our associate choreographers would come visit him,” Grande tells PEOPLE, marveling at everything Bailey packed into his schedule. Choreographer Christopher Scott and the associate choreographers would “teach him in his dressing room and so on and so forth,” she recalls. 

Pointing to her friend and costar, she says, “I just feel so thankful to be present and in my body during all of this very special work and celebrating it with the most brilliant, incredible artists around me.”

Bailey agrees. “What I've been amazed by is seeing the final film,” he says. “[There’s] so much that I hadn't seen because I wasn't there on set. And to see it as effortless as it is — these performances are knockout, obviously Ari and Cynthia — the work that went into it is unprecedented.”

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Netflix’s Chris Van Dusen-created, Shonda Rhimes-produced Bridgerton, on which Bailey stars as Anthony Bridgerton, is set to release its fourth season in 2026. Showtime’s Ron Nyswaner-created miniseries Fellow Travelers, which an Emmy Award-nominated Bailey starred in with Matt Bomer, was released in October 2023. 

Wicked: Part One is in theaters Nov. 22, with Part Two slated for Nov. 26, 2025. The movies costars Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Bowen Yang as Pfannee, Keala Settle as Miss Coddle, Ethan Slater as Boq, Peter Dinklage as the voice of Dr. Dillamond and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible.

Go behind the scenes of Wicked with PEOPLE’s new special issue, available here.