How One Wicked Character Becomes The Tin Man In The Wizard Of Oz

Massive, massive spoilers for Act 2 of the Broadway musical “Wicked” — which is being adapted into “Wicked: For Good” — lie ahead! Stop reading if you want to avoid spoilers!

In the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz,” Judy Garland’s Dorothy Gale is flanked by three companions as she travels down the yellow brick road to meet the Wizard of Oz (four, if you count her loyal pup Toto, who traveled with her from Kansas to Oz). These friends and protectors are known as the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), and the Tin Man (Jack Haley), and while Dorothy wants to ask the Wizard to send her home, the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man have agendas of their own. The Lion wants to ask him for courage, the Scarecrow would really love a brain, and as for the Tin Man, he simply wants a working heart.

You’re probably familiar with these characters because, well, “The Wizard of Oz” is one of the most famous movies of all time … but how does the Tin Man factor into “Wicked,” Jon M. Chu’s epic two-part adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name? (While “The Wizard of Oz” obviously factors into the story of “Wicked,” I should clarify that the musical really leans on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” which is darker than the musical but still serves as its source material.) A character we’ve already met in “Wicked: Part One” will actually become the Tin Man, and it’s a tragic tale — so, here’s what to watch for when the second “Wicked” film, “Wicked: For Good,” comes out later this year.

When we meet Boq in “Wicked: Part One,” we immediately realize he hails from Munchkinland — largely because he has to stand on a pile of books at Shiz University to meet his romantic rival Prince Fiyero Tigelaar (Jonathan Bailey) in the eye — and he’s played by Ethan Slater, an actor known for his roles in Broadway shows like “The SpongeBob Musical” and “Spamalot.” (These days, Slater is also known for his ongoing real-life relationship with Ariana Grande-Butera, who plays Galinda Upland in “Wicked” and received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role.) Boq is sweet, seemingly shy, and carrying a pretty obvious torch for Galinda, who brushes him off to the point where she keeps forgetting his name (she calls him “Bick,” like, a whole bunch of times). When Galinda figures this out, she shrewdly tells Boq he should ask out Nessarose Thropp (Marissa Bode), the younger sister of unpopular Shiz student Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo, who also scored an Oscar nod in the lead category), leaving Galinda free to continue romancing Fiyero.

Boq seems to understand, on some level, that Galinda is providing Nessarose as a distraction, but it doesn’t mean he’s cruel to Nessarose; in fact, he’s her date when a whole bunch of Shiz students sneak out to go dance at the Stardust Ballroom, and he very earnestly ensures that she has a good time. Unfortunately, Boq’s connection to Nessarose is ultimately his downfall — and it helps explain how he becomes the Tin Man.

Nessarose truly loves Boq, but the way she shows it in the second act of the “Wicked” musical is, frankly, not great. At the end of the musical’s first act (which we’ve already seen on-screen in “Wicked: Part One”), Elphaba escapes the Emerald City under duress just after she discovers that Shiz University’s Dean of Sorcery Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) are both in cahoots and evil frauds. While Elphaba escapes, she sings the showstopping Act 1 closer “Defying Gravity,” reluctantly leaving her best friend — who is now styling her name as just “Glinda” — behind as she seeks to leave Oz and avoid persecution, and as the film closes, we see Madam Morrible stage a full PR campaign declaring that Elphaba is an enemy of all that’s good in Oz. As Nessarose and her and Elphaba’s father Governor Thropp (Andy Nyman) listen to her announcement, Governor Thropp collapses, and in Act 2 of the musical, we learn that he died (presumably of shock).

When Nessarose takes control of Munchkinland as governor (in her father’s stead), she becomes a tyrannical leader — which is particularly bad news for Boq, who ends up trapped in the land and facing a civil rights crisis all because Nessarose wants to hang onto the man she loves so badly. When Elphaba shows up to try to reason with her sister, things go from bad to worse, especially where Boq is concerned.

When she discovers that her sister has become a cruel ruler of Munchkinland (and that her love for Boq has become toxic), Elphaba tries to do something kind for her sister, but it completely backfires. We see, in “Wicked: Part One,” that Elphaba and Nessarose’s mother Melena (Courtney Mae-Briggs) left behind a pair of silver shoes, and Elphaba enchants them — turning them ruby red in the process — to help Nessarose walk without the aid of her wheelchair. It’s extremely important to note here that, on stage, Nessarose is typically played by an able-bodied actor, but Marissa Bode is the first wheelchair user to ever play the role. In September of 2024, Bode indicated to Variety that this particular moment will be different in the second “Wicked” film, stating, “Casting authentically and showing an authentic disabled person is very important, but it’s also very important how we’re shown. I am very happy with the changes that have been made, for sure.”

Nobody besides Bode and Jon M. Chu knows quite how this will change in “Wicked: For Good,” but the point in the musical is that Boq, seeing Nessarose walk, abruptly decides that she no longer “needs” him and tries to leave to be with Glinda. In a rage, Nessarose casts a spell that’s supposed to keep Boq with her by focusing on his heart, but all she ends up doing is shrinking his heart because it belongs to Glinda. In order to save his life, Elphaba casts a spell of her own, turning Boq into the Tin Man (so that he no longer requires a heart to stay alive).

Boq appears in both L. Frank Baum’s original 1900 book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and in Gregory Maguire’s novel “Wicked,” but when Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman adapted the latter for the stage, they decided to make one big change: Boq became a “composite character,” meaning that they combined Boq’s story with that of the Tin Man to give his narrative more dramatic weight. (Boq is actually a very wealthy citizen of Munchkinland in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and even allows Dorothy and Toto to stay at his enormous home during her adventure.) Plus, in the books, the Tin Woodman is a character who’s named Nick Chopper, but this all changes in the “Wicked” musical, making Boq a far more tragic character. (At least he’s not alone — Fiyero gets turned into his yellow brick road buddy, the Scarecrow.)

In “Wicked: Part One,” we are given a sizable clue regarding Boq’s future — his last name is “Woodsman,” which is a fairly clear reference to the L. Frank Baum character referred to as the “Tin Woodman.” After becoming the Tin Man, Boq, in the musical, is imbued with rage and desperate for revenge against Elphaba, blissfully unaware that the spell that transformed him actually saved his life; in the musical number “March of the Witch Hunters,” Boq as the Tin Man rallies citizens of Oz to hunt down the so-called “Wicked Witch of the West” and destroy her for good. If “Wicked: For Good” follows the musical as faithfully as “Wicked: Part One” did, we’ll see Boq’s heel turn when it comes out on November 21, 2025; as for the first film, it’s available to rent or buy on digital platforms now.