Those Wicked cameos surprised fans of the original Broadway musical with a show-stopping moment that was more than blink and you’ll miss it. If like us, you’re OG cast die-hards, it was more like a “blink away all the tears” experience if you happened to catch the film over its opening weekend. Wicked director Jon M.
Chu revealed how he was able to produce a magic trick like no other: sneak in original Broadway Elphaba Idina Menzel ( Frozen ) and Galinda Kristin Chenoweth ( Descendants ) to feature in an extended and updated version of “One Short Day,” the song in which the witch besties (played in the movie by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, respectively) arrive in the Emerald City. “The question for us was, how, and how much are they willing to do in it, and how much can the story itself handle it? Because they’re such iconic people and especially to these roles,” Chu told the Hollywood Reporter. In his movie, Menzel and Chenoweth appear as troupe actresses portraying “the wise ones” of Oz who musically perform the history of the Grimmerie book of magic and how the Wizard came into the possession of such a powerful artifact.
“It was like a mania. [We said], ‘Let’s make them the biggest stars of Oz. Let’s make them this iconic legends of Oz on the stage show, and let them present the history of Oz.
They would be the wise women of Oz.’ It just seemed to make sense. And [composer] Steven Schwartz—it might have actually come from him from my m.
