Are Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth in the “Wicked” movie?

🚨🚨🚨Warning: This story contains significant Spoilers for “Wicked.”

“Wicked” officially hit theaters on November 22, more than 21 years after the Broadway musical of the same name premiered at the Gershwin Theater.

With the premiere, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande step into the shoes of Broadway stars Idina Menzel, who originated the role of Elphaba, and Kristin Chenoweth, Glinda – and they received their blessing both on and off screen.

Chenoweth and Menzel attended the film’s premiere in Los Angeles on November 9 and posed side by side with Grande and Erivo.

Then, after years of speculation about how and If Menzel and Chenoweth would be involved in the production, with the film’s release confirming that the actors will make guest appearances in the adaptation.

Chenoweth and Menzel’s cameo includes a few bars of new music by Stephen Schwartz, the Broadway musical’s composer, and a sweet moment between Elphaba, Glinda and the actors who originally played them.

And for “Wicked” superfans, there’s also a nod to two key figures behind the musical.

“It was a really special day for us because it felt like we were being knighted by the queens,” Erivo told TODAY’s Willie Geist. “They were so wonderful and supportive. So many words of wisdom. So many words of encouragement, again and again.”

“I received three video messages from Kristin and a number of different voice notes from Idina,” she added.

Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth’s cameo in Wicked, explained

Menzel and Chenoweth’s cameo occurs toward the end of the film, during Glinda and Elphaba’s unforgettable duet “One Short Day,” which follows the friends as they visit the Emerald City for the first time to meet the wizard.

During the song, Elphaba and Glinda stop for a spectacle called Wizomania, which offers a shiny and glittering retelling of how the Wizard managed to seize power in Oz.

This moment is expanded upon in the 2024 film with a new song and dance performed by two members of an Emerald City theater group performing “The Sages of Oz.”

The two wise men are played by Menzel and Chenoweth. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, singing about a prophecy about the Grimmerie, a spell book.

According to the song, the Wise Women wrote down their spells in the Grimmerie in a “strange and secret language.” But a prophecy predicts that after her death, in “Oz’s darkest hour,” a powerful figure distinguished by her ability to read the Grimmerie will lead Oz.

At the end of Song of the Wise Men, this character is revealed to be the Wizard of Oz (although the ending of Wicked: Part 1 calls his authenticity into question).

At the end of the cameo, Chenoweth and Menzel stand next to Grande and Erivo, respectively, looking lovingly at the actors playing the role created for them. Menzel even repairs the hat Erivo wears as Elphaba.

Schwartz tells TODAY.com that they had “all sorts of ideas” about what Chenoweth and Menzel could be in the film.

“We obviously wanted to honor Kristin and Idina by including them in the film,” he says.

Some of these ideas included Chenoweth as Glinda’s mother, or Chenoweth and Menzel as teachers at Shiz University, the fictional college where Glinda and Elphaba meet.

At the same time, Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book for the musical “Wicked” and the script for the 2024 film, were already working on the expansion of the song “One Short Day”.

“We wanted to expand ‘One Short Day’ to show more of the propaganda that the wizard was spreading and to really understand this spell book better – the Grimmerie, what is it? Because it plays such an important role in the plot,” says Schwartz.

It was none other than director Jon M. Chu who made the connection between Menzel and Chenoweth and the “One Short Day” expansion, says Schwartz.

“‘Why don’t we just make them two wise women of Oz, and it can be Kristin and Idina?'” Schwartz remembers Chu saying.

“And then, of course, we were able to adjust the number to place Easter eggs in homage to their appearances on the show,” adds Schwartz.

Easter eggs in an Easter egg

In addition to acknowledging Chenoweth and Menzel, fans of Wicked will also likely view certain moments of their performances as a nod to their legacies as Glinda and Elphaba.

During the vocal arrangement written for them, both Menzel and Chenoweth hit some of their signature notes. Menzel sings the signature “Oh!” riff heard at the very end of “Defying Gravity”.

In the meantime, “Kristin has to play her soprano,” Schwartz says. “She hits a high D flat.”

The two wise men also seem to have a bit of a rivalry, which “the press satirized at the time when they tried to make (Chenoweth and Menzel) rivals,” Schwartz adds. (Both Menzel and Chenoweth were nominated for Best Actress in a Musical at the 2004 Tonys for a piece of “Wicked” history, which Menzel won.)

“There’s a beautiful moment where Ariana is about to hit a high note and Kristin puts her hand over her mouth,” Schwartz adds.

The whole number is “a big Easter egg,” says Schwartz.

Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s guest appearances on ‘Wicked’

Schwartz and Holzman even appear in the scene.

Holzman appears in the scene as one of the Emerald City’s citizens watching the Wizomania performance. Towards the end of the Song of the Wise Men, an image of the Wizard appears in the sky, landing in Oz and seemingly reading the Grimmerie.

Holzman’s character points to the picture and says, “He can read it. He must be… a wizard!”

Then, at the very end of “One Short Day,” Schwartz appears as one of the wizard’s palace guards. As Elphaba and Glinda show their invitation, Schwartz’s figure squints down at the piece of paper from a watchtower. He breaks into a smile and memorably shouts, “The wizard will see you now!”

Filming “One Short Day” and being part of a scene where Chenoweth, Grande, Menzel and Erivo were all together was “emotional,” Holzman says.

“It was kind of like, ‘Pinch me, is this really happening?'” Holzman says. “These four women are extraordinary women and artists and they all deeply admire and respect each other.”