\n<\/p>\n
Nicole Scherzinger was exhausted. It was a week since Jamie Lloyd\u2019s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s \u201cSunset Boulevard\u201d<\/a> had begun performances, and Scherzinger was playing the lead role of Norma Desmond \u2014 the forgotten star of the silent screen whose attempt at a comeback doesn\u2019t end well.<\/p>\n In Lloyd\u2019s stripped-down, psychologically focused production at the Savoy Theater, Norma\u2019s unraveling psyche is the heart of a story that is less about the loss of stardom than the emotional fallout of being passed over while in possession of all your gifts. At the end of the show the previous night, Scherzinger stood alone onstage, covered in blood and dazed, appearing to hardly register the audience\u2019s wild applause.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s grueling,\u201d she said last week while curled up on a chair in the depths of the Savoy. \u201cBut for many years I have been saying I am using a fraction of my potential, and now I feel I have really tapped into that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The glamorous Scherzinger, 45, might initially seem like an odd fit for the role of Norma, immortalized by Gloria Swanson in the 1950 Billy Wilder film<\/a> on which the musical is based. Scherzinger rose to fame as the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls<\/a>, a girl group formed in the early 2000s<\/a>. And though she played Grizabella in a revival of Lloyd Webber\u2019s \u201cCats\u201d in the West End in 2014, her post-Dolls career has encompassed two solo albums and long stretches as a judge on \u201cThe X Factor\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe Masked Singer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Scherzinger herself was taken aback when Lloyd asked to meet and suggested the part some 18 months ago. \u201cThere are many roles I wanted to play in musical theater, but this is not one of them!\u201d she said over the course of an hourlong interview. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if the idea was flattering or insulting. But Jamie said to me, don\u2019t watch the movie; read the lines, listen to the music. And I fell madly in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n In a telephone conversation, Lloyd said he first thought about directing a revival of \u201cSunset Boulevard\u201d during the pandemic<\/a>, and \u201cimmediately thought Nicole should be in it.\u201d<\/p>\n Norma Desmond, the acclaimed experimental director added, had come to be seen as a role for an older actress. But he wanted a woman \u201cwho is in her prime, really brilliant, but has been discarded, just as we talk even now about women over 40 not having the opportunities they should have,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt there was a connection for Nicole, who had extraordinary international fame, but then didn\u2019t have the opportunity to live up to her potential.\u201d<\/p>\n Talking about her career, Scherzinger said that although she had been a shy and awkward child, she had \u201calways had a hunger and a drive.\u201d Born in Honolulu to a Filipino father and a Hawaiian Ukrainian mother, she was raised in a religious and sheltered environment in Louisville, Ky., by her mother and a German American stepfather, whose last name she took.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Although her parents were blue-collar workers with little money to attend concerts or the theater, she grew up singing and loving music (her mother\u2019s family had a musical group called Sons and Daughters of Hawaii). She attended a performing arts high school, acted professionally in Louisville, and studied theater (\u201cStanislavski and Shakespeare and all that\u201d) and voice in college.<\/p>\n After leaving college early to join an acoustic rock band, Scherzinger auditioned for \u201cPopstars,\u201d a reality series that offered the winning contestants a place in a musical group and a recording contract. Her winning group, Eden\u2019s Crush, was modestly successful, and \u201cit got me out of Louisville,\u201d she said about her move to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2003, she auditioned for the Pussycat Dolls, a former burlesque act<\/a> reimagined as a sexy singing and dancing girl group. Scherzinger became the lead singer and a household name, with the Dolls selling millions of records on the back of hits like \u201cDon\u2019t Cha\u201d<\/a> and \u201cButtons.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n She was famous, but for a woman who \u201cgrew up singing in church,\u201d she struggled with the group\u2019s skimpy clothing and sexualized image, and spent over a decade obsessively exercising and battling bulimia. \u201cI wish I could go back and enjoy it, realize this isn\u2019t going to be forever,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s what Norma feels: It was her youth, she worked so hard, and she can\u2019t get that back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Pussycat Dolls disbanded in 2010, and Scherzinger pursued a solo career with modest success. It was during this time that she performed \u201cDon\u2019t Cry for Me Argentina\u201d<\/a> (from Lloyd Webber\u2019s \u201cEvita\u201d) as part of a TV special celebrating Lloyd Webber, who, along with the director Trevor Nunn, asked her to join the cast of the 2014 revival of \u201cCats\u201d on the West End. Scherzinger described the experience as transformative (every night \u201cI got to shed my old self and be reborn again\u201d), even though she didn\u2019t stay with the production when the show moved to Broadway. She decided to join \u201cThe X Factor\u201d instead, and Lloyd Webber was open<\/a> about his annoyance.<\/p>\n In a telephone interview, the composer said that he had been disappointed because he believed in her talent and \u201cwould have loved to have seen her show Broadway what she could do.\u201d But they remained friends, he added, and was delighted when Lloyd suggested Scherzinger play Norma. \u201cI believe she is one of the most gifted singer-actresses I have seen perform my work,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tough role, but Nicole is fearless musically and dramatically. I am a total fan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Scherzinger said that \u201cThe X Factor\u201d had given her the time and financial stability to pursue her own music, which she did while also taking on other projects, like voicing the character of Sina in \u201cMoana,\u201d and starring in a television version of \u201cDirty Dancing.\u201d But she always believed, she said, that she would return to musical theater, particularly after performing in the television special \u201cAnnie Live!\u201d<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n Now that she\u2019s back onstage, how does it feel? She said that preparing to play Norma had been cathartic: \u201cI felt I knew exactly this feeling of abandonment, the constant thread of loneliness, the insatiable need for affirmation, validation. Now, there is this epic, iconic score to throw all this into and create art from places of torment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lloyd said that Scherzinger was \u201cconstantly searching, questioning, finding details, deepening her understanding of the inner world of the character.\u201d Her work ethic (asking questions, taking notes and sometimes working through breaks), he added, has been an inspiration to the entire cast. \u201cYou would never know, through this entire process, that she didn\u2019t have an acting background.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about future plans, Scherzinger said her dream was to write her own musical, loosely based on her life.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter all these years, I finally have the courage not to worry about what others think, to know I have something to say,\u201d she said. \u201cAs Jamie always says, \u2018You are brave, be braver.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n