Scherzinger is funny and confiding, with a rich sense of irony. Her portrayal of Norma won her the Olivier for best actress in a musical—but the snobbish surprise that greeted her casting in London (some suggested she was too pop, too young, too lightweight) has clearly stayed with her. “I’ve had that my whole life,” she says ruefully. Lloyd, one of the UK’s most in-demand stage directors, laughs when he recalls the reaction. “For many people it was such a baffling proposition,” he says. “Me directing Nicole in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I was taken aback by the cynicism and skepticism. It became part of the story of the production because people were so confused by it—and then came to see it. And it was not what they were expecting.”
Lloyd Webber, who has known Scherzinger for years, had no doubts. “I genuinely think she is exceptional,” he tells me. “There are only a handful of actors who really can act through the music and the words. So many singers sing wonderfully, but they don’t necessarily understand the language. I would put Nicole in the league of the very highest.”
Lloyd wanted to work with Scherzinger for a simple reason: “I love musicals to be sung impeccably,” he explains. “Nicole is clearly a world-class vocalist.” Working together, they have become the firmest of friends. (“He just understood me,” Scherzinger says.) He still teases her about their first encounter a few years ago, when they arranged to meet—coincidentally—at the Savoy. “She came down the stairs in a huge hat and sunglasses,” he remembers, laughing. “She had her manager and her assistant and a guy filming for social media, and I thought, Oh my goodness.”
Scherzinger’s rock star glamour can also be worn as an armor against the world. At the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, where she won best musical performance, she looked every inch a star, but also felt surprisingly vulnerable. “I was seated next to Elton John and Sir Ian McKellen,” she recalls. “I was like, What am I doing here? I mean, I love theater, but these aren’t my peers.” She laughs about it now. “I still feel the little Nicole in me come out.”
Little Nicole was born in Honolulu and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where nobody looked like her. “I was really, really shy,” she says. “I was of my own skin, a Hawaiian, Ukrainian, Filipino little girl. I had these long, lanky arms, and I felt awkward and didn’t have a lot of confidence.” Her sense of difference was exacerbated by the family’s lack of means. “We were super blessed, but I didn’t grow up with much money. My mom went to yard sales and consignment shops,” she says. “As I got older, I was like, ‘I’m going to buy stuff from the Gap.’ ” The family drove two hours to a Gap outlet, and still felt they were overpaying. “To this day,” she says, “I don’t take anything for granted.”
