Marissa Bode is in the middle of the kind of moment that feels both dreamlike and completely earned. With Wicked: For Good hitting theaters, the actor—making her feature-film debut as Nessarose—finds herself part of one of the year’s most anticipated releases, sharing the screen with Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Bowen Yang, Jeff Goldblum, and Michelle Yeoh. She’s also making history as the first wheelchair user to play the role, something she holds with enormous pride and purpose.
When we speak, the premiere draws impossibly close, and Bode admits the reality of it hasn’t fully sunk in yet. “I think that’s just it,” she says. “It’s the fast approaching-ness of it all. I cannot believe how soon it’s going to be. It’s quite wild to me how soon it is. It really snuck up on me a little bit.” Her excitement is contagious; she lights up when she talks about finally sharing the film with the world. “I’m excited. I’m excited for all of you to see it. I’m going to be seeing it with my friends. One of my friends actually rented out a theater! So, yes, I am really excited.”
Between press appearances, premieres and a carousel of time zones, Marissa is doing everything she can to stay grounded. “I do my best to relax in between everything and take whatever breaths I need,” she says. Her method of unwinding is delightfully unexpected: “As literally everybody in my life knows because I won’t stop talking about it, I love to scrapbook. That’s been my hobby of the year. I was just on the plane coming back from London and finishing out the last few pages of my scrapbook. I feel like all the flight attendants looked at me like I was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs because I had glue in all my clippings, and all my stickers just scattered around me.” Scrapbooking, she says, is what helps her stay connected and calm in the middle of the whirlwind. “I feel like I’ve been doing my best and doing a good job anyways of trying to preserve myself and stay sane also in between everything.”
Her beauty routine, rooted in vegan and cruelty-free products, is another steadying force. “I really, really love ILIA Beauty,” she says immediately, naming the tinted sunscreen and blush as staples in her routine. “It just goes on very smoothly. It’s very, very lightweight, but covers just enough.” When her skin barrier took a hit this summer, she found salvation in Krave Beauty. “It’s called Great Barrier Relief. I love it. I accidentally stripped my skin barrier this summer, and it helped a lot. It helps a lot. It gives me that extra glow. I really love it.”
Filming Wicked wasn’t without its skin challenges. She laughs remembering a curly-hair product that gave her gorgeous curls—and also her worst breakouts. “I won’t say the product, but it made my curls look so good. It actually made them look awesome, but unfortunately, it gave me the worst breakouts of my entire life, literally! And this was all happening during filming, of course. I was like, ‘This could not have come at a worse time.’” The remedy: A dermatologist stepped in with a prescription cream that cleared everything quickly, though she jokes that she can’t recall any of the product names involved. “It’d be more helpful if I knew the name of it,” she says. “All I know is that it worked!”
What stays with her most through all of this—the beauty, the travel, the premieres—is the responsibility and possibility of representation. “That means the most to me for a multitude of reasons,” she says. “One, just to create that baseline and the headway in the industry as a whole, to remind everyone that disabled people do have a place in this industry, whether it’s myself or my equally as talented peers.”
Bode sees the moment not just as a milestone for herself, but as a platform for broader advocacy. “It means a lot to me in terms of helping me build space and create a platform for myself to speak on disability rights issues, as well as other things. Truly justice overall. Progress overall is completely intersectional. We should be speaking out about more than just the things that affect us personally.”
The messages from young fans—the ones who see a part of themselves in her, or who are seeing disability represented for the first time—are what she carries closest. “It has been really cool to see the younger generation of disabled kids’ reaction, as well as non-disabled kids’ reaction, to the film and to my character,” she says. “For a lot of kids, this could be their first time seeing a disabled character on screen or a disabled person, period. It’s been really great.”
