Ariana Grande had a ‘magical’ early meeting with Kristin Chenoweth.

About twenty years before she played the bubbly Glinda the Good Witch in the movie musical Bad (in theaters Nov. 22), Grande, 31, met the role’s Broadway creator backstage.

Chenoweth, 56, gave the then-10-year-old “a little magical body wash” and “a little magic wand,” the singer-actress tells PEOPLE. “I think it was magical because look where we are now!”

Directed by Jon M. Chu and adapted from the hit Broadway musical that originally starred Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. Bad movies (Part two to be released in 2025) stars Grande alongside Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Oz’s future Wicked Witch of the West.

“I had so much fun,” Grande says of seeing the Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman musical and meeting the “friendly” original cast members backstage with her grandmother in 2003. “My chemistry as a person changed permanently,” she says, adding that she divides life into ‘two chapters: before and after seeing Bad.”

Body wash and a magic wand aren’t the only things that make the “Yes, And?” singer remembers of the formative experience. Chenoweth’s “dog peed on the couch and I helped her clean it up,” she recalls.

Jonathan Bailey, who plays Winkie Prince Fiyero in Chu’s films, stops by to inquire about the body wash: “Didn’t you have one on set?”

“The puddle?” Grande jokes.

She explains that she has kept a memento from 20 years ago, a lip gloss from Stila Cosmetics’ collaboration with the Bad musical. “Can’t be good to use,” she says. ‘It must be poison. It’s old, but I had it with me for a little extra magic.

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Bailey, who launched his acting career on stages in his native England as a child, tells PEOPLE that he also saw Menzel play Elphaba in London. “I was also a huge fan,” says the 36-year-old actor. “It was incredible. I remember the orchestration; the music was, I think, what I kept coming back to.”

Grande, who made her Broadway debut in the musical 13 in 2008, has remained closely associated with Chenoweth, especially during the Bad film audition process.

When she spoke to PEOPLE in October, Chenoweth said she “couldn’t be more excited about” Grande. “She is incredibly funny, a fantastic actor and she gets the chance to show that in this role.”

Bad: Part One is in cinemas from November 22 with Part two scheduled for November 26, 2025. Take a look behind the scenes of Bad with the new special issue of PEOPLE, available here.