Breaking Baz: Olivier Awards Victor Jamie Lloyd Reveals Nicole Scherzinger Was Not “Flattered” When Offered ‘Sunset Boulevard’; Hannah Waddingham Livens Up Afterparty

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Lloyd, director of the history-making reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, reveals that his star Nicole Scherzinger initially “refused to consider” accepting his offer to play Norma Desmond in the show adapted from Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic. “Nicole was not flattered,” he gasped, speaking to Breaking Baz backstage at the London theatre awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday night.

Lloyd says that the show’s “obviously associated with Glenn Close’s iconic performance and therefore people think about Norma Desmond being a much older woman.” Mmm, that’s unlikely to amuse Glenn Close.

He tells me that Scherzinger, a one-time member of The Pussycat Dolls, called Norma Desmond a “has been” and stormed at Lloyd that she “still looks good under the bright lights.” Lloyd encouraged her to study Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s book and lyrics and to listen to Lloyd Weber’s music. ”I think it’s Andrew’s greatest score,” he argues. “It’s complex and challenging, so atmospheric and so surprising.” He explains that he’d had a “weird sort of fever dream” that only Nicole Scherzinger could play Norman Desmond.

The director felt that the singer had a “real connection to Norma’s story”. Lloyd suggested that “Nicole, who has experienced great things and then, when you think about it, in many ways has been dismissed as an artist and has never really been given the opportunity to show the world what she’s really capable of doing.” The production plays with that, he says, in the sense that “where does Nicole end and where does Norma begin?” Lloyd says he had to tell Scherzinger not to think about Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Elaine Paige, or Petula Clark.