(The following story contains major spoilers for Bad.)

One short day. That, coincidentally, is how much time the Bad filmmakers had to film that one cameos for the “One Short Day” scene in the film based on the iconic Broadway musical of the same name.

In the film, when Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) go to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), they watch a show about the history of Oz. At that point, original Broadway cast members Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, who played Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, in the musical, appear to take the audience through the city’s vibrant story.

“There wasn’t a world we wouldn’t invite them to be a part of,” says director Jon M. Chu The Hollywood Reporter. “The question for us was: how and how much do they want to put in, and how much can the story itself handle? Because they are such iconic people, and especially for these roles.”

He continues: “It was like a mania. (We said), ‘Let’s make them the biggest stars in Oz. Let’s put these iconic legends of Oz on the show and let them present the history of Oz. They are said to be the wise women of Oz.” It just seemed logical. And (composer) Steven Schwartz – it might have actually come from him from memory – said, ‘I know exactly how to do it,’ because we needed some information about the story of the history of Oz, plus they would they are, so it would make more sense.”

Chu explains that they only had one day to film this sequence after sneaking Menzel and Chenoweth into London. “We had one night in the middle of the night, from 7pm to 6am, on a rainy night. … the moment they sang the songs and experienced their iconic moments, it was beautiful. And the nice thing about the day was that I think it was really healing for everyone. … I said, ‘This is in your honor. It’s an honor for you that we made this film because we want you to experience what we experienced when we first saw it, when I went to the theater before it went to Broadway, what it felt like to see how Elphaba and Glinda steal. our hearts, you have never experienced that before. And now we can do that for you.’ Ari cries all the time. Cynthia cried all the time. There was a lot of love on that set that day. And so I’m so grateful that they came out. I was not involved in closing the deal. I have no idea what it took to get them there. All I knew was that they were somber and willing. We only had one day to do it.”

Two other cameos appear in the series. Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book of the musical Badappears as a resident of Emerald City. Schwartz appears at the palace and announces, “The Wizard will see you now!”

Badwhich hit theaters on Friday via Universal Pictures, also stars Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Keala Settle as Miss Coddle and Bowen Yang as Pfannee.

You can read Chu’s full interview about it Bad here.