Making Oz Truly Universal

Geoff Cook
Geoff Cook Member (Full) Posts: 156
edited November 2025 in Entertainment Out and About

Making Oz Truly Universal

A great story was published this week about the production of the new Wicked film. The entire team decided to make accessibility a core design element from the outset.

This effort began with casting Marissa Bode as Nessarose, a character who uses a wheelchair. Director Jon M. Chu and producer Marc Platt committed to setting a new standard for on-set access. They brought in a disability coordinator, Chantelle Nassari, who influenced the entire process.

The production created custom, accessible artist trailers—a first of their kind in the U.K. These trailers featured amenities such as chair lifts and voice-activated doors. Beyond the trailers, the team developed custom, movable ramps, ensuring that every scene in which Nessarose appeared was truly navigable. Even the character’s Ozian wheelchair was a custom prop explicitly designed for the dynamic dance sequences.

This is a fantastic step for inclusivity in major film production. It proves that this level of accommodation can be done.

What is one small, easy change every movie production should adopt right now to be more accessible?

Read the full story here.

Comments

  • Sarah Tuberty
    Sarah Tuberty Posts: 94

    Oh gosh so cool!! I wish this was the standard, but we are getting there!

    I recently watched the Tv series, "All the light we can not see" that centers on a young woman who identifies as blind, and it was so deeply encouraging to know that both actresses, Aria Mia Loberti and Nell Sutton, who played the main character (both a teen and a child version) were people who identified within the Blind Community- they were able to convey so much more rich authenticity of how people from this navigate this world. I felt so so encouraged!

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