Jamie Lloyd’s arc from tough childhood to king of the West End is as riveting as any of his sold-out productions. As his new take on Evita looks set to sweep theatreland, the director and his star, Rachel Zegler, talk reinventing the musical for now. Photographs by Matt Healy. Styling by Jessica Gerardi.
“My dad was a truck driver, and he used to play Evita in the cab as he drove. It was his favourite musical. Hearing it again, I suddenly had these vivid memories of sitting in the passenger seat of his big HGV driving around industrial estates and up these bleak, grey motorways up and down the country. He knew every word, and he’d sing along.”
Jamie Lloyd smiles. Now one of the most celebrated theatre directors in the world, he is about to open his own version of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famed musical at The London Palladium. “If my dad were around, it would just blow his mind.”
Playing Eva Perón? Rachel Zegler, swapping the wide-eyed innocence of Maria in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 film of West Side Story and in Disney’s recent live-action remake of Snow White, for the sharp-edged complexities of the Argentine first lady and a constantly contested figure….