The heartwarming story behind how Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth got Wicked cameos

If you haven’t had the chance to watch Wicked yet – click off this article now. If you have, we NEED to talk about the wildest cameos in the film: Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, the original Wicked Broadway Glinda and Elphaba. But how did this cameo come to be? There’s a very heartwarming story behind it.

How the cameo happened

The Tony-winning duo were on Broadway back in 2003 and Wicked director Jon M. Chu told IndieWire he knew without a doubt he wanted them “somewhere in the movie.” The problem was just figuring out where.

“Every time we put them as a cameo somewhere, it just felt not appropriate. It felt like it wasn’t enough; it wasn’t utilizing their talents. So when I was talking with Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, we had this section, it was Wiz-a-Mania. I wanted it to be an amusement park ride, like, ‘It’s a Small World’ where they get in a boat and it goes through this history of Oz. It was gonna be really fun, but it always felt like too much. And then I suggested: What if Kristin and Idina, that was a show that they were in, and they’re the most famous actors in Emerald City? It just clicked.”

Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz then “rewrote the entire song” of One Short Day to fit Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth into a literally Wicked cameo. “He rewrote the whole song for them, and it was fantastic, his little nods to them. It gave them stuff to do, and it gave them sort of a handoff, and it got to show them off, and it got to allow us, the audience, the filmmakers, to pay homage to them and give them their applause.”

The time crunch

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One huge problem on set was that the director only had “one night” to film their part.

“We snuck them into London and from the sun down to sun up, that’s when we got to shoot them, hidden away from the paparazzi cameras that were surrounding our sets,” Jon Chu said.

He also said having the original team alongside shooting felt like a “full circle moment.” How wholesome!

What about Idina’s iconic riff?

If you’re like me, you definitely actually died when you heard Idina do her iconic Defying Gravity riff. That idea was “all Stephen Schwartz,” according to Jon Chu.

“Stephen is like, ‘guys, I don’t know if this is too far, but I had to give her the thing. We’re like, ‘no, that’s the dream.’ Of course!”