Can’t Wait to Hear Ethan Slater Sing ‘Nessa uh Nessa’ in ‘Wicked’

Ethan Slater joining the cast of Wicked has ushered in a lot of news stories about the SpongeBob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical star, mainly because he started dating Ariana Grande through the production. Now, fans want to know: Who is Slater playing? Well, the answer is an absolute villain.

As a musical aficionado, I can safely say that Boq, the role Slater is playing, is one of the worst men in the musical theatre canon. Yes, that’s saying a lot, but Boq is the worst kind of “nice guy” out there. He’s a real “I wear a fedora cause its cool and girls don’t like to talk to me” kind of vibe. Boq is a fellow classmate of Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba’s (Cynthia Erivo) and someone who loves Glinda. Despite Glinda dating Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), Boq still does whatever she asks of him.

And before the friendship that eventually does form between Glinda and Elphaba, Glinda is incredibly mean and forces Boq to ask Nessarose (Marissa Bode) to the Ozdust Ballroom that everyone is going to dance at. It confirms that Boq is the worst kind of simp for Glinda, and as the musical continues on, he just really gives off the “nice guys finish last” vibes that no one really wants to be dealing with.

So the question of who Boq is really comes down to how you feel about him as a character. To me? He’s a villain, absolutely one of the worst and annoying as all sin. However, he does have one of the best parts of “Dancing Through Life” when he straight up lies to Nessa to her face when she tries to give him an out. SEE? VILLAIN.

How Slater will play Boq is going to be fun to unpack and Boq does, eventually, go on to help Nessa later in life, so we could see some changes to his character. For now, what we know is that Ethan Slater is playing a musical theatre role that truly makes me want to pull my hair out, but he does get to sing “Because you are so beautiful!” and that’s kind of nice.

(featured image: Bruce Glikas/WireImage)

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Rachel Leishman

Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.

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