This week, Variety dubbed Jonathan Bailey the “new king” of the box office. Between his starring roles in Wicked: For Good and Jurassic World: Rebirth, the out actor broke new ground as Hollywood’s highest-grossing actor of 2025.

According to the trade outlet, the latest installment in the long running Jurassic Park franchise has grossed over $850 million globally, while the Wicked sequel has made over $450 million to date.  

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Of course, Variety notes, neither film’s success rode solely on Bailey’s shoulders. Both are sequels based on massively popular intellectual property. And both featured Bailey appearing alongside mega stars like Scarlett Johanssen and Ariana Grande. It’s also worth noting that neither film was particularly well-received by critics.

But Bailey’s position as the highest-grossing actor of 2025 is nonetheless significant as he is, according to Variety, the first openly gay star ever to earn the title.

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As the outlet notes, the British actor was out well before he rose to prominence stateside with his role in Netflix’s Bridgerton, and his sexuality does not seem to have hindered his ability to land both gay and straight roles on TV and in films. His characters in Bridgerton and Wicked are both explicitly straight, while his character in Jurassic World: Rebirth had some noteworthy chemistry with co-star Johannson’s.

Last year, his performance as a gay congressional staffer in McCarthy-era Washington in Showtime’s Fellow Travelers earned him an Emmy nomination and a Critics’ Choice Award. And early last month, People Magazine named him their first-ever openly gay Sexiest Man Alive.

Still, even as he was set to co-lead two of this year’s tentpole films, a studio head told The Hollywood Reporter in June that they were “not sure he can carry a movie on his own yet.”

In that same THR profile, Bailey spoke candidly about the headwinds that gay actors face in the industry. “Being an out gay actor, historically, meant that you wouldn’t be able to play straight and there weren’t any gay parts to play, anyway,” he said. “That’s obviously changed, massively.”

“There’s moments where, yes, you have to be excellent to prove that you can do it. And it’s not like I haven’t felt that. There’s the weight of history. And there’s endless brilliant people who have come before you who have changed the way that people see sexuality,” Bailey said. “Any sort of sense of prejudice against sexuality is something to fight against, and what better way to do that than to go and play any kind of character.”

Following the box office success of Jurassic World: Rebirth and Wicked: For Good, Bailey recently revealed that he’ll be taking a bit of a break from acting to focus on his LGBTQ+ charity, The Shameless Fund.

“I’ve been working solidly for about three years now, which has been amazing and mind-blowing,” he told British GQ. “But with everything happening in the world right now, I’m going to stop acting for a bit next year and just focus on the Shameless Fund. Over the next few months, I’ll be focusing on staffing and making sure we get all the right people in all the right places.”

That’s definitely a worthy cause, but let’s hope the Bridgerton star returns to the silver screen soon. As Variety’s Daniel D’Addario put it, movies are more fun with Jonathan Bailey around.

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