Please note: this article contains spoilers for Badin theaters now.

Ariana Grande has nothing but praise for the Bad secret cast members of the film.

Bad is an adaptation of the hit musical that is so faithful to the source material that it features cameos from the original Broadway team.

Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who played the roles of Oz witches Elphaba and Glinda in 2003, appear halfway through the characters’ introduction to the Emerald City.

As Grande, 31, tells PEOPLE, theater fans have “loved” the Jon M. Chu-directed film’s two biggest guest stars onstage for 21 years. In the same musical series ‘One Short Day’, Bad musical creators Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman also appear in full Ozian attire.

“I mean, it was just such a surreal honor,” Grande says of filming alongside costar Cynthia Erivo with those who originally produced the show. “To come up with pieces with them and see them sing and do their shtick,” she adds, was truly an “out-of-body experience.”

Menzel and Chenoweth, in fabulously colorful dresses, make a grand entrance into the film. Playing members of a group of Emerald City singers who perform the story of the Wizard’s heroic arrival in Oz, they greet Erivo’s Elphaba and Grande’s Glinda and lead them to their rendezvous with the man behind the curtain himself.

Jonathan Bailey, who plays Fiyero in the film (taking over the role from Broadway creator Norbert Leo Butz), tells PEOPLE that it was special to see the two Elphabas and two Glindas come together on screen.

“We saw it for the first time,” he says at the film’s premiere on November 3 in Sydney, Australia. “The image of the four of you… The people went wild. And you realize how important that is and how unique all four of you are.’

“It was emotional,” Grande remembers. Bad: Part One “couldn’t have happened without that piece, because this entire film is a love letter to (Menzel and Chenoweth) and to the original Broadway show. So it felt like a really important full-circle moment and a gift to a fan.”

Bailey says: “It’s a real moment.”

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Menzel, 53, and Chenoweth, 56, joined the film’s two leads at the Los Angeles premiere on November 9. Also in attendance were cast members Jeff Goldblum, Marissa Bode, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater and Bronwyn James.

Bad: Part One is now in theaters, with Part two expected November 26, 2025. Take a look behind the scenes of Bad with the new special issue of PEOPLE, available here.