Jamie Lloyd Talks ‘Sunset Blvd.’, ‘Evita’ ‘Waiting For Godot

Director Jamie Lloyd is, to say the least, very busy these days. In four days his radical, magnificent Broadway reworking of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Blvd. will be competing for seven Tony Awards, including one for his direction, one each for his two stars Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis, and one for Best Musical Revival. Then there’s Evita, another Lloyd Webber classic getting the Jamie Lloyd treatment for a June 14 preview date at the London Palladium, with opening night on July 1. That one has Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón, Diego Andres Rodriguez as Che and James Olivas as Juan Perón.

And of course there’s Waiting for Godot, set for Broadway this fall at the Hudson Theatre. The stars? None other than Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, those old Bill and Ted buddies who just might have more in common with Beckett’s tragicomic tramps than you ever imagined.

Deadline asked Lloyd about these projects and more. What’s up with Norma’s bloody face? Will Evita come to Broadway? Whose idea was Godot?

Read on…

Sunset Blvd., directed by Jamie Lloyd, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Christopher Hampton and Don Black opened October 20, 2024, at the St. James Theatre with a cast featuring Nicole Scherzinger, Tom Francis, Grace Hodgett Young and David Thaxton. The final performance for Sunset Blvd. on Broadway will be Sunday, July 20.

Sunset Blvd. has been nominated for 7 Tony Awards.

The article has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

DEADLINE: I know you’ve been asked a million times, so forgive me, but why Sunset Blvd.? What called you to it?

JAMIE LLOYD: I had been listening to Sunset Boulevard, so it’s not like it came completely out of the blue, and we had done a production of Evita at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London, and it was one of the greatest summers in my life, and I really enjoyed working with the team to reinvent the show and you know, come at it from a different point of view, and it was a real challenge.

And part of the sport of it was trying to reconceive every single moment, because what’s so interesting about Andrew’s work is that it’s intrinsically linked to the original production of those great, iconic, Hal Prince / Trevor Nunn productions. They’re ingrained in our popular culture, whether we know the shows or not.

So, in the pandemic, I had this real desire to do it all over again with another of his shows, and that’s when I started listening to a number of his works, and Sunset seemed like the obvious one, particularly clear when I had this dream of seeing this big white screen and this figure in a slip covered in blood, and of course, realized that that was, indeed, Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls, and thought to myself, she’s got to play Norma Desmond, which, as you can imagine, is quite a kind of startling thing to think about first thing in the morning during a pandemic, but here we are.

So, I then reached out to her, and she was not, in any way, flattered by the proposal. She said, you want me to play this old has-been? And I said, look, just read the lyrics. Read the script, and look at the words, and try to forget what you know about the show and anyone who’s played the role in the past, and just imagine that it’s a brand new show, and she just fell in love with the music, and she fell in love with the words, and you know, it’s very clear to me that Nicole would have a very deep connection to the role of Norma, because, like Norma Desmond, she has been incredibly famous as an international star and then was kind of dismissed and almost kind of belittled and laughed at, and certainly never taken seriously as an artist.

It almost seemed a kind of laughable idea to put her in a musical. I mean, little did people know, and now here we are. She’s giving us what I think is a performance for the ages, and finally, she can show the world what she’s really capable of doing. Yes, she’s this vocal powerhouse, but also, because of that deep connection to the role and the journey of the role, she’s an exceptional actor, as well.

So, it certainly was a surprising casting choice that was met with a lot of skepticism and cynicism when we first announced it. I think people were really baffled by the idea, and you know, there’s a lot of skepticism about her age and whether she was too beautiful, and you know, could she act? You know, people were even saying can she even sing live? All of which seems so kind of remarkable, now that people have witnessed what she can really do at the St. James.

DEADLINE: And Gloria Swanson wasn’t exactly a little old lady when she was in Sunset Boulevard, and even so, it’s not as if Hollywood only discards the elderly.

LLOYD: Exactly. Exactly, and I think it makes it even more tragic, doesn’t it, that you’re seeing a younger woman who’s at the height of her powers, and yet she’s been discarded, and of course, people can go out of fashion anytime, as you’re saying, and I think that’s what makes it kind of so intriguing that Nicole is a bit younger than people usually associated with the role, but that’s only, of course, because the brilliant Glenn Close returned to the role as a more mature woman. I mean, when Glenn first played the role, she was, you know, the same age as Nicole, roughly 47 I think, and Patti LuPone was 45.

And you know, the production plays around a lot with the idea of where does Nicole Scherzinger end and where does Norma Desmond begin? There’s a kind of blurred line between the two of them, because the production is very much made for and with Nicole in mind.

DEADLINE: And when you choose a musical or a play that’s been done before, how do you know which of those is it, of all of the plays and musicals you have to choose from? How do you know which will best suit your vision? You know, you clearly have a style. It’s minimalist. It’s sort of beautiful black and white and shadowy and dreamy, and you use the screens, the live circuit cameras.

LLOYD: I think of each of the productions as being pretty different. I mean, I think, yes, there are similarities, and there’s certainly a very intentional and visible line that threads between each production. So, you know, there’s a kind of particular process that is emerging and a particular way of working, and it really is just about trying to get to the essence of each of those pieces of work. So, it’s about getting to the center of each play or musical and trying to sort of clear away the baggage of the performers’ history of what’s gone before.

So, rather than just do a revival that’s a kind of version of the previous one, it’s just kind of almost…it’s kind of starting off with the aspiration of “let’s press reset on this. Let’s see it as if it’s a new piece of work, and what would we do if we were creating this from scratch today?”

What do you need to be able to tell the story and chart the emotional and psychological journey as clearly and dynamically as possible? And of course, it turns out that you don’t need very much at all. You just need really amazing actors and really amazing design collaborators, but it’s not that there’s no information there. It’s just that they’re taking away the literal, physical information, but there, actually, are a lot of very clear, intentional decisions being made, and actually, I think in something like Sunset Blvd. and certainly, our production of Much Ado About Nothing that we did recently in London, and now this production of Evita, there’s actually a lot of vision information.

I do think that there is a truth in your description of minimalism, but we like to think of it as a kind of maximalist minimalism, and that there’s so much information going on, there’s so much content, there’s so much that has been thought through, that it’s not just about kind of taking everything away. It’s just about being selective with what you do remove, and I think that, in a way, any play, any musical, could be investigated in that way.

DEADLINE: What can you tell us about Evita? Will it seem like a Sunset Blvd. in style?

LLOYD: No, I think it’s radically different from Sunset Blvd. I’m looking at the stage now as we speak, looking at the Palladium stage, and it’s kind of got the energy of a rock gig. It’s almost like Eva Perón does Coachella. You know, it’s got a kind of real energy. Fabian Aloise, who is our amazing choreographer, has done the most exceptional work, as he did on Sunset, but Evita is wall-to-wall dance. I mean, we really have turned it into a dance show, and his choreography is outstanding, and this cast is working up a sweat in every single number.

But yes, there is a kind of desire to ask the audience to really, radically listen, to really kind of become co-authors in the experience and engage with the material in a way that, again, is not literal, but there are lots of surprises. There’s a lot of energy. I’ve got a few surprises up my sleeve that people will discover from the first preview, but it certainly has a very different energy to Sunset because, of course, they’re very different shows. It’s trying to get to kind of the essence of this particular show, but what I love about both of those shows and also inside every piece that Andrew’s ever written is that they’re very weird.

They’re very radical pieces of work. They’re like fever dreams, and if you think of Evita, you know, you leap from one song to the next, almost like a concert, and you can kind of jump-cut, almost, cinematically from one to the next. You know, one minute, you’re in Junín in Argentina, and the very next moment, you’re in Buenos Aires. So, it’s kind of like allowing it to feel like a fever dream, allowing it to feel like a gig, and to be really, really kind of explosive.

I think that captures the atmosphere of both my experiences going to Buenos Aires and going to Buenos Aires football games where whole stadiums shake at La Boca Stadium, and also the kind of energy at a populist political rally. So, I think all of these ideas are kind of swirling around the Palladium at the moment, and it’s a real thrill to behold, particularly Fabian’s amazing work and the work of our three leading performers, all of whom we brought over from the U.S. Rachel Zegler and Diego Rodriguez are singing this material like I never heard it before. I think it’s going to feel like an entirely new Evita for a whole new generation.

DEADLINE: Has the music itself changed in any way? When you say Coachella, I’m starting to think, is this going to be a rock Evita?

LLOYD: Well, it is a rock opera, and actually, if you listen to that early concept album, you know, it’s pretty rock and roll, and I think the productions, over time, have maybe kind of gone down a slightly different route where you’re kind of using a blend of orchestrations. We’re just kind of tinkering with the orchestrations, and in terms of the rhythm section and guitars, bass, and drums, there’ll be a particular energy given to this particular version of the show, but ultimately what I love about doing these shows is it’s the score that you know and love, and it’s the orchestrations that you know and love.

DEADLINE: What are the plans for Evita? Will it be coming to Broadway?

LLOYD: Who knows? Who knows? All I’m concentrating on, at the moment, is that we’ve got to get it open in the London Palladium, but I mean, I love working in New York, and I love coming to Broadway, and I love transferring work there. So, let’s watch this space. Let’s see what happens.

DEADLINE: Let’s talk about one that will definitely be coming to Broadway, and that’s Waiting For Godot with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. Tell me how that came about. That sounds like a crazy, wonderful idea.

LLOYD: Well, it was Keanu’s amazing idea, actually. He woke up at some ungodly hour and FaceTimed Alex and said “you, me, Godot,” which took Alex by surprise, and then they got hold of me, and I met them on Zoom, and this was over two years ago now, and it’s a play that I’ve always wanted to do and have just been looking for the right time and the right cast, and this pairing feels absolutely perfect to me. For one thing they’ve been friends for decades, for over 40 years, and of course, that play, you know, above anything else, is about companionship, is about friendship, is about kind of, you know, love and friendship in the face of dire circumstances. So, I sort of thought, like, that friendship will come for free, as it were. You can’t really teach that kind of connection, and it’s very fascinating, actually, watching them. We’ve read the play together a number of times.

We’ve been to, for example, the Beckett archives here in the UK at the University of Reading, and when you hang out with them, they actually start to talk like the characters. They kind of bounce off each other, and there’s a particular shared sense of humor, and of course, you know, the characters in the play often talk about their past and their memories of the past and their longing for the past, and so, of course, they do have that. They live the life together. So, I think that’s a kind of great thing to be able to harness and bring to the play that feels very unique to those two actors.

DEADLINE: One last thing. Romeo & Juliet with Tom Holland, are there any plans for that to come to New York anytime?

LLOYD: No, not at the moment. Lots of complicated schedules involved in that one, as you can imagine, and of course, there’s already been a really great Romeo + Juliet recently. So, it’s sort of like we don’t need too many Romeo & Juliets on Broadway.

DEADLINE: Ok, now really one last question. At the end of Sunset, when Nicole comes out and she has the blood all over her dress and she has the blood all over her mouth…in the movie, Norma shot Joe. So why does Nicole have blood all over her face? Did she go for the jugular?

LLOYD: Well, look, she definitely shot him, but I would say that this is a woman who’s obsessed with the story of Salome, and what would Salome do? She kisses the bloody head of John the Baptist. So, there might be a clue in that.