For Good' Finally Gives Us the Most Accurate Version of The Cowardly Lion Actorsvaultpro

Wicked: For Good is finally presenting the most accurate depiction of a beloved Wizard of Oz character anyone’s seen in over 125 years. That character is the Cowardly Lion, first introduced in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 and later immortalized by Bert Lahr in MGM’s film adaptation in 1939. Lahr’s fusion of comedic timing and vulnerability made his Cowardly Lion a scene-stealing force as he journeyed with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man down the Yellow Brick Road to meet the Wizard of Oz. Even today, Lahr’s facial expressions and constant sobbing have the power to provoke side-splitting laughter.

While it’s certainly humorous watching a grown lion–– the purported king of the jungle–– become frightened by everything from dark forests to his own shadow, there has long been one aspect of the Cowardly Lion that adaptations of Baum’s book haven’t gotten quite right. That includes The Wizard of Oz, which is largely viewed as the greatest movie musical of all time. Of course, Jon M. Chu’s 2024 adaptation of Wicked: Part One has quickly joined the ranks, and not just because it scored 10 Oscar nominations and made over $758 million at the global box office. The film manages to make Elphaba Thropp’s journey as a misunderstood outcast all the more poignant with the casting of Cynthia Erivo, whose “Defying Gravity” will go down as one of cinema’s greatest movie musical moments.

‘Wicked: For Good’ Shows the Cowardly Lion Walking on All Fours Instead of His Hind Legs

The Cowardly Lion looking nervous in ‘Wicked: For Good’

Universal Pictures

We know from Lahr’s iconic performance–– and numerous other Oz adaptations–– that the Cowardly Lion is a talker, but one detail that many of the films have taken creative liberties with is how the Lion walks. Though Lahr’s Lion appears on all fours when he first meets Dorothy and the gang, he spends the rest of the film walking upright as a bipedal character (leaving poor Toto as the group’s only true quadruped). In 1978’s The Wiz, Ted Ross’s Lion does the same thing, standing and dancing on two feet, which makes sense given the musical’s many song-and-dance numbers. Whether an actor is playing the Cowardly Lion on stage or screen, it’s understandable why the creative team would want him to be a biped: it’s quite simply easier on the actor.

Be that as it may, Wicked: For Good has chosen to take a different approach and present the Cowardly Lion as Baum wrote him in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: as a lion who walks not on two feet, but on all fours. This should come as little surprise to viewers, who actually met the Cowardly Lion in Wicked: Part One, whether they realize it or not. Remember that lion cub who was brought into a Shiz classroom moments after Dr. Dillamond got sacked? That trembling little guy whom Elphaba and Fiyero whisk away and save grows up to be the Cowardly Lion. In Wicked: For Good, he shows up just in time to interrupt Elphaba’s new song and play a more important role than he did in the source material.

The Cowardly Lion Has a Bigger Role in ‘For Good’ Than He Does in the Musical

Animals play a key role in both Wicked films, just as they do in Baum’s Oz series and Gregory Maguire’s Wicked novels. Audiences knew from the very first trailer that the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy, and the gang would show up at some point, but it wasn’t clear until For Good just how big a role the Lion in particular would play (only that Dorothy’s face would not be shown). The dots began to connect when director Chu teased that a major Hollywood actor would be voicing him–– a tiny breadcrumb indicating something of a deviation from how the Wicked musical handles his character. On stage, the audience only gets two glimpses of the Lion: the Act I cage scene and the Act II song “March of the Witch Hunters,” wherein his tail is shown, but the rest of his body remains offstage. Chu’s announcement that a famous actor would be voicing the Lion revealed that For Good would find him speaking actual lines of dialogue, a refreshing tweak.

Naturally, Wicked fans wondered what exactly the Lion would say, and as For Good reveals, the answer is not much. Even still, the Lion is successful in not only interrupting the end of Elphaba’s song “No Place Like Home,” but also convincing the animals she’s trying to rally that she is not to be trusted. As the Lion explains, Elphaba took him out of the only home he’d ever known as a cub–– his cage–– and released him into the wild, which is why he grew up to be such a coward. He also shares that it was Elphaba’s spell that gave Chistery and the other palace monkeys their wings. All of this, in the Lion’s eyes, makes Elphaba no better than the Ozian forces seeking to strip animals of their rights. The Lion is thus effective in ruining Elphaba’s attempts to stop the animals from leaving Oz, and they continue filing into the secret tunnel beneath the Yellow Brick Road.

Jon M. Chu Knew Why He Wanted to Cast Colman Domingo as the Cowardly Lion

Colman Domingo on the phone in The Madness.

It was later revealed that Colman Domingo had been tapped to play the Cowardly Lion in For Good, which Domingo confirmed in a cheeky Instagram post involving a lion stuffed animal and the words “See you in Oz.” On why he chose to cast Domingo, Chu recently told CBS News that he wanted “someone who has a big heart, who has a big personality, but is soft and has presence.” Chu also had an iconic way of gauging Domingo’s interest, literally sliding into the Oscar nominee’s Instagram DMs to ask him if he was interested in joining the Wicked team. It was an instant yes from Domingo, who later attended the Wicked: For Good red carpet wearing his furry best in a fun homage to the character.

Domingo has thus joined Lahr, Ross, and a host of other actors in bringing the Cowardly Lion to humorous life on screen. Though films like Return to Oz and Oz the Great and Powerful have similarly shown the character on all fours, technological advancements and For Good’s reported $150 million budget allowed the film’s CGI artists to craft the most accurate and realistic depiction of the Cowardly Lion audiences have gotten since the character was first introduced 125 years ago.