In an interview with ‘Them,’ Maguire discussed his 1995 novel that inspire the Broadway musical and new film starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo

Wicked author Gregory Maguire is opening up about his famous book.

In an interview with Them published on Dec. 9, the author spoke about his 1995 novel, Wicked, which was the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical, as well as the new movie starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.

Maguire, whose book is itself an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, says that he was inspired to write Wicked in part as a way to examine the evil that exists in the real world. Creating a complex fictional universe also meant adding sexuality to the story, Maguire says.

“I wanted to make Oz seem as real as Middle Earth,” he said. “I wanted it to have a depth of culture, a depth of history and a depth of complexity, of experience that was more analogous to the world in which we live. And that meant it had to have varieties of sexual experience.”

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in ‘Wicked’.Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

Fans have speculated about the LGBTQ+ undertones of the story long before Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande hit the screen. Maguire’s novel features a scene in which Elphaba and Glinda kiss, and though it wasn’t included in the musical, the author says it was all part of the plot.

“That was intentional, and it was modest and restrained and refined in such a way that one could imagine that one of those two young women had felt more than the other and had not wanted to say it,” Maguire said.

“Or perhaps because a novelist can’t write every scene, perhaps when the lights were out and the novelist was out having a smoke in the back alley, the girls had sex in the bed on the way to the Emerald City. I wanted to propose this possibility, but I did not want to make a declarative statement about it,” the author added.

Maguire, who is gay himself, also addressed the parallels between the book and the AIDS crisis, which he says was on his mind while writing the novel.

‘Wicked’ by Gregory Maguire.William Morrow

“When Fiyero is murdered, as far as we know, and Elphaba retreats into the monastery of nuns, she spends seven years there and her job is to take care of the dying,” Maguire said. “And that was my nod to where we had been and where we were in our community. And by then, by the time I wrote the book, I had been living with a man for 15 years or so. I knew that somebody would have to care for dying people, even in a magic land where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops.”

Wicked: Part One arrived in theaters on Nov. 22, with the second part of the film set to release in 2025. The author also shared that when he was first approached by the Broadway musical’s writer Stephen Schwartz, he asked not to be involved with the production.

“I did not want to be distracted by whatever arguments might arise from collaborative work. I also wanted to honor the ambition and strength and talent and vision of other artists and not interfere with them, in the same way I didn’t feel that L. Frank Baum had come out of his grave and interfered with me,” he explained. “And I thought that was only honorable to say, as long as you have proven to me you know why I wrote this book, then go ahead.”

Maguire has written eight books in the Wicked universe, including the Another Day trilogy. His latest novel, Elphie: A Wicked Childhood, will be published in 2025.

“I did not want to be distracted by whatever arguments might arise from collaborative work. I also wanted to honor the ambition and strength and talent and vision of other artists and not interfere with them, in the same way I didn’t feel that L. Frank Baum had come out of his grave and interfered with me,” he explained. “And I thought that was only honorable to say, as long as you have proven to me you know why I wrote this book, then go ahead.”

Maguire has written eight books in the Wicked universe, including the Another Day trilogy. His latest novel, Elphie: A Wicked Childhood, will be published in 2025.