Nicole Scherzinger said playing the washed-up star in musical Sunset Boulevard has “truly changed my life” and described how her own experiences of being “discarded and dismissed” influenced her performance.
She plays Norma Desmond – a delusional silent movie star discarded by Hollywood when talking pictures arrived – in Jamie Lloyd’s new production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical at the Savoy Theatre.
It marks her return to the stage for the first time since 2014 when she starred in Cats and she said she had been offered other roles in that time but turned them all down.
She said: “Someone like Jamie Lloyd comes along and says, ‘I have this vision for you and this role is going to change your life,’ and you hear the role and you say ‘What?’ But it truly has changed my life and I’ve never been more proud of anything I’ve ever done in my life.”
She said the role, previously played on the London stage by Glenn Close, would allow people to see “for the first time” what she is capable of.
She said: “When I say, ‘With one look, I’ll be me’ on that stage what you get, what you see, what you feel, what you hear, it’s all of me and that’s how it changed my life, because for the first time I finally get to give that to people and share that with people and show that to people and connect that way with people.”
The 45-year-old former Pussycat Doll and TV talent show judge said her own experiences with fame made her feel like “a modern day Norma Desmond”.
She said: “I know what that’s like, I know what it’s like to be at the height of fame in the industry and then I know what it’s like, I’ve said it before in the press, what it’s like to feel dismissed and discarded.”
