Jonathan Bailey Smolders on the Outside—but Inside, He Feels “Quite Kooky”

It’s one day after Time named Jonathan Bailey one of the “world’s most influential rising stars,” one month before he’ll be anointed People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2025, and seven weeks before he’ll reprise his role as Fiyero in Wicked: For Good. But right now the 37-year-old actor has one thing on his mind: “I love a bath,” Bailey says.

He’s speaking to me from a hotel in Paris, where he’s traveled to attend a Dior show after making a presentation for his LGBTQ+ support foundation, The Shameless Fund. The tub was his first stop after checking in—and though we have a lot of ground to cover, Bailey is preaching the gospel of the soak. He loves Himalayan bath salts, lavender, and cinnamon oil—dropping anything and everything into a steaming “cauldron,” as he jokingly calls it, then hoisting his body in too. “I’ll turn it into a little ramen,” he says. “Turn myself into a little dumpling.” He recommends DIY boiler maintenance for those hoping to get their water temperature to the dumpling-boiling point, as well as the dubiously safe practice of bringing a laptop on a tray into the bathroom. “There’s something about being in water that just cognitively allows your brain to function in a different way…. In my head, I’m building little Lego houses, as you do as a kid.”

Tuxedo tailcoat and bow tie by Ralph Lauren Purple Label; shirt and waistcoat by Dunhill; pocket square by Charvet.

Photographer Theo Wenner. Fashion Editor Tom Guinness.

Bailey knows that the wider public considers him to be charming. But in his own mind—and as this bath digression proves—“I feel quite kooky.” He idolizes antic leading men like Gene Wilder, Jim Carrey, and Robin Williams. “I feel like there’s just this brilliant sort of throbbing orb that’s to be reclaimed from those incredible performances,” he says. When it comes to those in his own generation, Bailey admires David Jonsson and Harris Dickinson: “He’s babygirl,” Bailey says of the latter. “Talk about charm.”

Bailey’s smoldering public image and his silly Billy self-perception may seem at odds, but in the actor’s breakout roles, the latter gradually gave way to the former. He played Cassio in the National Theatre’s 2013 production of Othello, the role Bailey personally considers his breakthrough; he also appeared on the hit crime drama Broadchurch that same year. Then came Bailey’s major TV role—and his first extended Regency-era oral sex scene—in Shonda Rhimes’s Bridgerton, a career-skyrocketer for which Bailey may not have been entirely ready: “Oh, I wonder if this has happened too soon,” he remembers thinking. “There’s so many things I haven’t done—I haven’t done Chekhov or Strindberg. I haven’t done a tap dance onstage.” He has, however, received an Emmy nomination for the epic period romance Fellow Travelers and danced literal circles around costars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked, the highest-grossing nonsequel of 2024. Soon after, he starred in his first major franchise, playing a paleontologist opposite Scarlett Johansson in this summer’s Jurassic World Rebirth.

Shirt by Loro Piana; tuxedo pants by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello; shoes by Church’s; tie by Dunhill; socks by Pantherella.

Photographer Theo Wenner. Fashion Editor Tom Guinness.

Photographer Theo Wenner. Fashion Editor Tom Guinness.

Bailey’s very first acclaimed gig was on a much smaller stage. When he was a kid, his three older sisters loved to teach him the elaborate choreography they’d seen while out clubbing or out with friends, then have him perform for the rest of the family. “I was sort of a tiny little Shetland pony that was being broken into dressage,” Bailey says. Or maybe, he quips, “it was more like bear-baiting, where you make animals dance.” Standing there in front of his adoring audience, Bailey says, “was probably the moment that I thought, Wow, this feels amazing.”

Coming up for Bailey is more Bridgerton, as well as Wicked: For Good, out November 21. The musical’s release will follow another assuredly epic press tour in which Bailey will once again be paired with the Wizard of Oz (also as his fellow kook from the Jurassic film universe), Jeff Goldblum. “He’s magical and brilliant,” Bailey says. “I could just follow him through the mystical woods of his mind, and then just always bring it back to a bullet point that was on the page about selling the film.”

Photographer Theo Wenner. Fashion Editor Tom Guinness.

A few years ago Bailey said he wanted to explore two acting roles in particular: a father and a real person. “I reckon if we speak in two years’ time, I think we’d have knocked both of those off,” he says. Before he runs off to another appointment in Paris—rejuvenated by his time in the cauldron—Bailey makes one final request: “Can you put this in?” he asks. “I hate group chats. Part of my personal journey is getting to a point where I’m actually really excited if I’m not included. No offense—I obviously would love to communicate face-to-face, on the phone, send a message. But those, they’re just not for me. That, and tepid baths.”

Set Design Julia Wagner; DP Shane Sigler; Location Ealing Studios; Groomer Liz Taw; Produced by Casa Projects. For details, go to VF.com/credits.