Andrew Lloyd Webber reflects on the Tony Award-winning revival of 'Sunset Boulevard'

Under Jamie Lloyd's direction, the renowned composer's classic show won three prizes, including Best Musical Revival and Best Actress for Nicole Scherzinger.

Since Andrew Lloyd Webber premiered Sunset Boulevard, the musical adaptation of the Billy Wilder film he co-created with Don Black and Christopher Hampton, in 1993, he's seen numerous revivals and reinventions around the world. But none are like director Jamie Lloyd's, the 2025 Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Musical now on Broadway through July 20.

"The most exciting thing was when Jamie told me what he intended to do with it, and it was quite radical," Webber told reporters in the Tonys press room on June 8 following Sunset's win.

Lloyd is known for minimalist productions, and Sunset Boulevard traditionally exhibits the lavish glamour of old Hollywood. Stripping away all period sets and costumes, the director instead evoked that era by leaning into a stark black-and-white aesthetic (the Tony-winning lighting design is by Jack Knowles) complete with cinematography. Ensemble members double as camera operators, projecting select performances onto a giant, cinema-size screen hanging over the stage.

"With all those older shows, it's great when somebody comes to you with a new idea of how to do it," Webber said. That's happening with numerous shows of his right now: Lloyd is about to direct Webber's Evita in London, starring Rachel Zegler and employing a similar film/theatre approach as Sunset, and a reimagined Cats subtitled The Jellicle Ball is teasing a return to New York after an acclaimed Off-Broadway premiere last year.

A few other changes helped this Sunset achieve its success both on Broadway and in London, where Lloyd's production premiered in 2023. Some songs were cut ("they were, when you look back at it, a little old-fashioned," Webber admitted), which "made it possible to make the show a lot darker," according to the composer.

But the true key to any Sunset production is the star who plays Norma Desmond, a silent film actress who goes mad with obsession and delusion, unable to accept she's been all but shunned from Hollywood. Lloyd found it in Nicole Scherzinger, who won an Olivier Award for her London performance and, now, a Best Leading Actress Tony Award for making her Broadway debut in the role.

Webber and Scherzinger have collaborated previously — she earned her first Olivier nomination for playing Grizabella in Cats in London — but it was Lloyd who proposed her as Norma, an idea Webber called "incredible."

"She's got such a fantastic voice. She can really act through music in a way that very few people can," Webber said.

When asked if he had any reservations about Lloyd's interpretation, Webber shared, "It's quite difficult to to absolutely know something's going to work — but you can have a pretty good hunch." He recalled advice the late director/producer Hal Prince gave him early on in his career: "You can't listen to a musical if you can't look at it."

"That's incredibly, incredibly true," Webber continued. "What I think is fantastic about this production of Sunset Boulevard is, although it may be radically different in the sense that it doesn't have huge, great sets or anything like that — it doesn't have a great big house for Norma Desmond — what it has is an incredible visual style."

With its already camera-forward approach, this Sunset Boulevard feels, to fans, ripe for a movie musical adaptation, something Webber said he's been wanting for 35 years. He had no concrete plans or vision to share for one — "film isn't my real world, I'm afraid; I'm a theatre animal through and through," he said — but the idea of adapting Lloyd's revival for the screen jogged Webber's memory of when Wilder first saw the original Sunset Boulevard musical in London all those years ago.

"What would Billy Wilder have made of Jamie's production?" he asked. "I think he'd have loved it. Absolutely loved it."

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Top image credit: Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jamie Lloyd at the 2025 Tony Awards. (Photo courtesy of Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
In-article image credit: Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. (Photo by Marc Brenner)