Ethan Slater On Boq’s New Journey And That Big Gen V Twist

Ethan Slater is still a theatre guy. He may be starring in Wicked: For Good, but to a very select audience, he’s the revelatory star of Spongebob Squarepants: The Musical, the Broadway adaptation that has no right being as good as it is. Since his big break in Wicked, he’s started to appear more on screen like in his villain turn in Gen V Season 2, but that hasn’t lessened his love of treading the boards.

“I'm doing a play in a couple of months starting in February called Marcel on the Train, which I co-wrote with Marshall Pailet,” Slater tells Inverse. “I love theatre and I love doing theatre. It's something that I always hoped to be doing as much as possible, but I really love film and it's been amazing to get to do more of that.”

Just in 2025 alone, Slater has been able to show just how varied his screen work can be. In Wicked: For Good, Slater is Boq, the mild-mannered Munchkin student at Shiz who goes on to become the Tin Woodman. In Gen V, he’s Thomas Godolkin, the barely-alive supervillain who was secretly controlling Hamish Linklater’s Dean Cipher.

What’s next? He’s not counting anything out, regardless of the medium. “People are always asking, ‘What kind of project do you want to do next?’ And I write, so a lot of the things that I want to do are things that I'm writing, but if it's just about what world do I want to join, it's hard to know until the opportunities come up. Being an actor is being in service to somebody else's storytelling, which is a really exciting thing to do.”

Inverse spoke to Slater about Boq’s final chapter, that big Gen V twist, and the Spongebob meme he finally understands.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and/or brevity.

Boq’s storyline in Wicked: For Good is definitely a lot darker than in the first movie. How would you describe his journey?

When we meet Boq in the beginning of the first Wicked, he is sort of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, optimistic guy looking for love and community. And he kind of thinks he's found it in this group of friends and he thinks he's found a really good friend in Nessa, though they see their relationship really differently.

But by the end of that movie, each part is sort of leaving him. He loses each part of this friend group and by the beginning of Wicked: For Good, he is stuck in a place with one of his friends who he doesn't really recognize anymore. He doesn't recognize Nessa anymore. He doesn't recognize himself anymore, and he feels trapped.

What's exciting about Boq’s journey is, what do you do when you feel like you're in the wrong place? You feel like you are all alone, either literally or emotionally. And Boq tries to get out, he tries to figure out a way to break free of that, but as the hold sort of tightens, resentment grows, and that isolation and resentment turns into anger. So there's a big transformation of Boq in this movie, but even without any magic spells or anything, I think the transformation starts from the moment the movie begins.

“We don't see the change happening in ourselves unless it's reflected back at us.”

Did you pull any different inspiration for this movie than Wicked?

We shot it as sort of one full thing. One day, we would be doing movie one and the next day, because it was raining, we'd be doing movie two. So it was kind of all over the place, but that's kind of the joy of movie making. Things aren't usually filmed in order unless you're really lucky.

So it’s all one Boq. I think that sometimes there are multiple names that are used to bill this character, but it's really all the same guy in movie one and movie two. It's just the world around him is changing. That was how I tried to play it: it's not that Boq is changing so much, it's that the world around him is changing and he's responding to that. I think that that's how we sometimes feel in life. We don't see the change happening in ourselves unless it's reflected back at us.

Is there another musical you’d want to see John Chu bring to the screen?

Yeah, absolutely: anything and everything. The thing that's amazing about John, he comes from the world of dance, and filming dance, and telling stories in that way. I think that that's what makes him so engaging as a director, because he knows that bodies moving through space is what tells the story.

It's a visual medium. When you can't say something, you sing it. And when you can't sing it, you dance. And I think that John has a really, really amazing visual understanding for how to tell these stories in ways that not a lot of people do. I would trust him with pretty much any musical.

What’s your dream musical role?

I've got a few that I've always said. When I was in high school, I was a junior in high school, I did The Producers with my good friend and fellow actor, Noah Robbins, and I've always wanted to do that again. I will say that the other big thing that I've always wanted to do is Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, but hear me out: I want to play Tevye before I turn 40 because it's the old country. The oldest daughter is 18 years old. I think he's really like 38 probably. Topol, I believe was actually in his late 30s, but they aged him up. So that's my soapbox. I think Tevye should be young and I want to do it.

“When you can't say something, you sing it. And when you can't sing it, you dance.”

Are you disappointed that you can't play Thomas Godolkin in The Boys’ final season?

I would love to play Thomas Godolkin as much as possible. He's so fun. I mean, he is obviously pretty terrible, but I really, really loved playing Godolkin and it would've been nice. That would've been fun.

There is a prequel series coming up, would you be down?

God, how could I not be? I would be honored to. I know that they're making it and I've heard from Eric [Kripke] and that whole squad, it seems pretty awesome, so I'll be excited to watch it.

Did you discuss your performance with Hamish Linklater considering how Godolkin was controlling Cipher?

I didn't discuss it with him at all, but I did watch a bunch of his scenes and his work leading up to it. He apparently did do his hair in the same way that I wear my hair. That's what he told me. I tried to, as much as possible, get the essence of some of the ways that he holds himself. Godolkin when he is controlling Dean Cipher, it's different. There's a different energy there.

I think that a big part of that is because once Godolkin is free from this case of controlling Cipher, he feels like he has already leveled up and he is free to be himself. I think that he shed some of the pretense in that moment, but at the same time, he has a little bit of the same speech pattern. It was really fun to sort of balance the writing that they gave the characters and the ways that it changed with also trying to imbue it with a little bit of Hamish.

When did you find out about the twist that Godolkin was controlling Cipher? Was it while reading the script or did they tell you upfront?

It was while reading the scripts. When I auditioned, I auditioned with dummy sides. I had no idea what the story of the season was. Then they sent me the scripts and they scheduled a call to talk about it beforehand. Yeah, it was pretty funny. So I kind of got it right before.

What was your reaction?

I was like, “This is so cool. Holy sh*t. This is f*cking awesome. Can you please send me some of Hamish to the scenes?” And they're like, “That's why we're doing the call. We were going to send it to you so you can see.” Because I shot some stuff, but I hadn't shot most of it. We had already started filming. He had already done a couple of episodes. I had done one, but I didn't really know what was happening.

Have you hear Ice Spice’s new song “Big Guy” for the upcoming movie The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants?

I have not. I'm so sorry. But as soon as you said it, I was like, I think I actually have seen memes that now are making more sense.

What have you been watching and enjoying recently? What’s been giving you joy?

I mean, I've been watching some really good movies. In the past two days, I have seen Sorry, Baby, Eva Victor's movie. I don't know if I would say it gave me joy, but it certainly gave me a real gratitude for life in some ways and was very life-affirming in the face of trauma and something really horrible. There’s a lot of beauty in it.

And I watched Jay Kelly, which I thought was awesome and also heartbreaking. It's a movie about filmmakers and actors and managers and the teams and the people and our loved ones and how to prioritize life.

Look, I'm not a movie star, though I say in my head, yes, I hope, but no, I'm just kidding. I'm not a movie star, so I don't have that same exact experience. But everybody in every field has the experience of “Do I prioritize my work or do I prioritize my loved ones?” And we all try to do both. I think everybody's trying their best. I just thought it was very life-affirming and both of those movies really kind of made me cry. And I watched them in the last couple of days. So they're really the top of my mind.

And then The Chair Company. That brings me joy. The Chair Company I've been f*cking loving. He's so weird and he's so brilliant. My God.

That's what we need to get you in, some sort of Tim Robinson thing.

Don't think I don't unfollow and refollow just hoping he'll notice.

Wicked: For Good is now playing in theaters.