Jonathan Baileyis best known forBridgertontoday, and while that series certainly ranks among his best movies and TV shows, Bailey has amassed a huge body of work. He has appeared in more than 50 projects on screen since he began acting professionally, but Bailey is also an accomplished theater actor. Bailey’s movement between those different mediums has allowed him to play many different types of characters over the years.
Bailey’sBridgertoncharacter might be in a romantic drama, but he has also appeared in more comedic roles, like inCrashing, musicals like theWickedadaptation, and he has action projects like aJurassic Worldmovie on the way. All of those projects feature Bailey fully embodying completely different roles, proving that he has become a fantastic character actor in addition to being capable of playing the leading man in a romance. Bailey’s best movies and TV shows are the ones that allow him to completely transform.
Many talented British actors have appeared in at least one episode ofDoctor Who. It’s almost impossible to find a British actor who has developed a successful career who has not made at least one appearance in the long-running series. Bailey appears in a single episode ofDoctor Who. He can be seen in season 8’s “Time Heist,” During the time of the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and his companion Clara’s (Jenna Coleman) time on the show.
Bailey also voices Lakis in theDoctor Whopodcast seriesThe New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield.
“Time Heist” is one of the great examples of how campyDoctor Whocan get, and it is a welcome episode for fans when they thought Twelve was a very different Doctor from Eleven. Bailey’s Psi is a hacker who has had his memory wiped and teams up with Clara and Twelve to rob the bank that is supposed to be the most secure in the entire universe.
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He’s got a bit of a punk attitude that Bailey plays well, and it looks like he had all kinds of fun during the episode.Unlike all of Jonathan Bailey’s best movies and TV shows, however, hisDoctor Whoappearance is one the audience does not get to spend as much time with.
9Groove High (2012)
As Tom
Groove Highis one of the most unique Disney Channel UK shows. The Disney Channel has had a long history of having musical sequences in non-musical projects, but it also has the legacy ofHannah MontanaandHigh School Musicalnow as well as severalDisney movie musicals. Disney Channel UK also has some great musical series, and Groove High is one of them.
Bailey’sBridgertoncostar Luke Newton also starred in a Disney Channel musical series:The Lodge.
Groove Highis not the standard musical though. Instead, it’s a combination of live-action and animation two modern pop stars look back on their time in a performing arts school. Those flashbacks to their time in school are animated. Bailey plays one of the pop stars while Samantha Barks plays the other. Bothactors provided the live-action performances and the voice over work as well as the singing voices for the characters.
Today, this show might feel like something of a tween TV fever dream.It throws all of the comedy out to see what works with the audience, and Bailey hams it up for each and every slapstick moment.For example, in just the first episode he has a plunger on his head, a camel spit on him, and he uses a French accent instead of his own alongside the actual jokes in the dialogue.
Off The Hookis one of the most underrated series Bailey has appeared in. It began as the web seriesFreshwith five-minute episodes being streamed online before full-length episodes were broadcast in the UK. While most American teen shows will focus on the high school years,Off The Hookfocuses on university “freshers,” hence the original title as they embark on an independent life for the first time.
Bailey’s Danny has a plan for that independence. He is fully prepared to embrace university life and effectively start over. Unfortunately for him, his “worst best friend” ends up in university with him. The impulsive slacker manages to interrupt all of Danny’s plans with hilarious results.
The series really helps to showcase Bailey’s comedic timing.Bridgertonmight be Bailey’s best-known project now, but that show is more of a drama and only allows Bailey’s humor through in more subtle moments. Here, he gets to go full sitcom, and he is fantastic at it.
Leonardoprovides Bailey with his first leading roleand another period role for him. This time around, Bailey is embodying a character living in 15th-century Italy, though with plenty of modern sensibilities.
What is your favorite Jonathan Bailey role?
Bailey has been praised for his recent portrayal of Fiyero in Wicked. I do think he does a fantastic job in that movie, but if forced to choose my favorite role of his, that would not be it.
The series sees Bailey star as the teenage Leonardo da Vinci. A teen series with a historical twist, the show sees Leonardo simply trying to live his life, but he also happens to be a genius of his time. The show might not be historically accurate and infuse a lot of modernity into the stories, but that is part of what makes it fun. Leonardo combines some mystery, romance, and even the threat of the Medici family into the story.
Bailey is charming in the lead role. It’s this early role that gives a good indication of how perfect he would be as the leading man in projects likeWicked.
Broadchurchis one of the most critically acclaimed crime dramas to come out of the UK. It’s even had an American remake. Bailey, however, stars in the first two seasons of the original UK series as a reporter.
Broadchurchoriginally follows the investigation into an 11-year-old’s murder. David Tennant and Olivia Coleman star as the detectives investigating the case. Bailey is the local reporter covering the case. Because he is local, however, finding the truth is not just a job that could provide the break of his career; it’s personal for him.
Though the series ran for three seasons, Bailey only appears as a main character in the first two.
The series is a very heavy drama with many of the roles in it played with a brooding intensity. Bailey has that same intensity as Olly Stevens, and it’s a great demonstration of the same intensity he will carry as Anthony inBridgertonlater in his career.
W1Ais a series that satirizes the upper management of the BBC. It gives a fictional version of how the TV studio works for the audience and originally ran for three seasons in the UK. Webisodes were produced featuring some of the cast in 2020 and 2024, but Bailey was not one of the original cast members who appeared.
Bailey’s Jack Peterson is one of the most conniving characters Bailey has ever played.While many of his roles up to this point were more charming and funny, Jack is the kind of character the audience loves to hate. He still has Bailey’s humor, but he also manipulates everyone around him. Jack uses his coworkers to climb the social scene in UK’s television scene.
W1Ais named for the start of the postal code for the BBC’s real-life headquarters.
It’s a very different role for Bailey and one that the audience likely would have loved to see him in for years, but the show has a total of only 15 episodes across its three seasons.
4Crashing (2016)
As Sam
Crashingis in the vein of a lot of sitcoms starring twenty-somethings. The twist, however, is that these young adults are living in an abandoned hospital. The deal in the UK is that they can use the building as housing as long as they keep it up.
It was the first television series created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who would go on to helmFleabag. The series helped to create the foundation of how she approached her serial projects. AsThe Ringerpointed out, she found a way to make sitcom tropes feel fresh for the audience here:
Waller-Bridge tap-dances through practically every cliché available—but along the way, she bends and warps them. Every trope comes with a sharp right hook. She darkens some […] [and] brightens others.
Bailey appears as Sam, a friend and roommate of the man who initially gets the job as caretaker of the hospital.He is loud, brash, and a little inappropriate at times. Sam is someone obsessed with sex and sexuality, which makes the character yet another vastly different one in Bailey’s acting history. He is an indication that Bailey has the makings of a brilliant character actor.
Jonathan Bailey had a theater background before he became prolific in the TV and film industry. That background likely helped with his portrayal of Fiyero in the movie musicalWicked. The first movie really allows Bailey to ham it up in his solo performance.
Fiyero is suave, used to getting what he wants, and used to being the center of attention.
The movie follows the friendship that develops between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) while they attend university before the events of Wizard of Oz. The two are destined to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. While the first movie is about their journey to friendship and then being separated by the truth of a conspiracy in Oz,Fiyero bonds with them both.
Wickedwas nominated for four Golden Globes (winning one) and 10 Oscars.
Fiyero is suave, used to getting what he wants, and used to being the center of attention. He piques Galinda’s interest instantly with his charming antics. With Elphaba, however, he shows his heart, rescuing a lion cub from a classroom with her.Bailey is able to play both facets of Fiyero perfectly, and he has an easy mastery of his voice and dancing that makes him hold his own against two powerhouse performers.
Though season 2 ofBridgertonis devoted to Anthony’s romance, Bailey has appeared in every series of the Netflix period romance so far. Each season spotlightsa different Bridgerton as they fall in love, and each season uses different romance conventions to do it.
Bailey stars in the series as the eldest of the Bridgerton siblings. In the event of their father’s death, Anthony becomes the family member in control of the estate.Bailey plays the weight of Anthony’s responsibilities well, especially in the first season where he is angry and exacting when trying to help his mother find a suitor for his sister. That weight is appropriately lessened when he falls in love in the second season.
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The Regency Era romance has kept heart fluttering for three seasons thus far, and Netflix has already renewed Bridgerton for season 4.
The series has rightfully kept Bailey as a supporting player in the series even as his star grows outside of it.He has a knack for slipping between charm, dry wit, and outright disdain as Anthony that few could match, makingBridgertonvery entertaining.
Jonathan Bailey stars alongside Matt Bomer in the limited seriesFellow Travelers, and it is the best project of Bailey’s career so far. The series is alsoone of Bomer’s best projects in his long TV career.The two play clandestine lovers over the course of five decades.
Fellow Travelerswas nominated for two Golden Globes and three Emmys. It also won a Peabody Award and a GLAAD Media Award.
Fellow Travelerssets a secret love story against the backdrop of important historical events. While Bomer plays a World War II veteran and State Department employee, Bailey plays a congressional aide when the two meet in the 1950s. While they secretly fall for one another, the Red Scare emerges and McCarthyism is the order of the day, making their secretiveness all the more suspicious.
The miniseries creates a realistic portrayal of two closeted men as they navigate the ups and downs of their relationshipand the political minefields of things like ongoing wars and LGBTQ+ issues decade by decade. It’s a poignant drama and also a love story full of fantastic chemistry.
