Jon M Chu says "there was no world where we wouldn’t invite" Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel to cameo in the 'Wicked' movie.
The original Broadway castmembers Kristin and Idina, who played Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, appear on a stage show on the history of Oz in the film and Jon said working out how to include them was difficult.
He told The Hollywood Reporter: "There was no world where we wouldn’t invite them to come be a part of this. 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.
"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 memory — said, ‘I know exactly how to do it’ because we needed some information about the story of the history of Oz, plus it would be them, so it would be more meaningful."
He revealed that they only had one day on set to shoot the sequence and it was emotional for everyone, including Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, who play Glinda and Elphaba in the movie.
He said: "We had one night in the middle of the night, from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m, on a rainy night. … the moment they sang the songs and got their iconic moments in that, it was beautiful. And what was cool about the day was, I think it was really healing for everybody. … I said, ‘This is in honour of you. This whole us making this movie is an honour of you because we want you to experience what we got to experience when we first saw it, when I went to the theatre before it went into Broadway, what it felt like to watch Elphaba and Glinda steal our hearts, you have never got to experience that. And now we get to do that for you.’
"Ari is crying the whole time. Cynthia was crying the whole time. There was a lot of love on that set that day. And so I’m so grateful for them to come out there. I was not involved with the deal-making. I have no idea what it took to get them there. All I knew is they were down and willing. We just had one day to do it."
