Everyone’s Raving About Nicole Scherzinger—As They Should Be

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [The logo for Daily Beast's Obsessed]( Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon     This Week - Everyone in New York is buzzing about this. - One of the best TV performances of the year. - A delightfully unusual animated film. - We’ve reached peak holiday rom-com. - This! Zendaya! Dress!     Nicole Scherzinger, We Always Knew I need to thank Nicole Scherzinger for so many things: For giving one of the most transfixing, volcanic, roof-shattering musical theater performances I’ve ever seen in the current Broadway production of [Sunset Blvd.]( For giving me and all of my theater-loving friends something to gush and bond over every three or four minutes or so, when our bodies start quaking again in aftershock to her seismic performance. And, most of all, for giving me a reason to be my favorite thing in the world: absolutely smug. Scherzinger isn’t just the toast of New York and the theater world this week, after the opening of Sunset Blvd. Every champagne bottle in Manhattan spontaneously popped in unison in her honor. The kinds of [raves]( that she and director Jamie Lloyd’s production of the [Andrew Lloyd Webber]( musical have received border on historic; only a few performers can boast this spewing geyser of accolades and adulation. I could go on and on. Since I can’t exactly point you to the dozens of group text messages I have going on at the moment with friends buzzing about the show, I’ll instead direct you to my brilliant colleague Tim Teeman’s [wonderful review](, which we essentially recreated in ecstatic conversation several times at the office this week. Much of the talk about Scherzinger’s work in the show is in impressed disbelief. Scherzinger is best known as a member of the pop group the Pussycat Dolls, whose songs include “Don’t Cha” and “When I Grow Up,” and for being one of the original judges on the TV show [The Masked Singer](. It’s not the résumé some would expect for the person who just turned a revelatory take on Norma Desmond, a role performed by theater greats like Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, and Elaine Paige. Those people clearly haven’t spent countless hours traveling down YouTube rabbit holes of Scherzinger’s performances over the years. In fact, being cast in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical makes more sense than you might think, given her years as one of his muses while she’s worked steadily in London and the West End. She was nominated for an Olivier Award for her playing Grizabella in Cats, belting the indelible showtune “Memory”: [[ratio]  ]( Here she is performing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from Evita, a glimpse at the powerhouse poise she’d channel as Norma Desmond: [[ratio]  ]( And maybe what started it all, her vocal acrobatics singing the Christine part in a Phantom of the Opera tribute: [[ratio]  ]( But it’s not just her mastery of Andrew Lloyd Weber ballads that hinted at her talent. There are some standout vocal performances that have gone viral over the years, like her cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”: [[ratio]  ]( She’s also always had a clear love and respect of musical theater, taking on roles that seemed to be more a labor of passion than a strategic career move. If you watched the TV musical versions of Annie Live!, in which she played Grace, and Dirty Dancing, in which she played Penny, you saw the transfixing confidence with which she commanded every musical number and scene. My favorite, though, is her unexpected, jaw-dropping version of Maureen in the Hollywood Bowl production of Rent: [[ratio]  ]( And let’s not undersell it: Those Pussycat Dolls songs were bops, and Scherzinger’s vocals on them were objectively outstanding, to say nothing about her dancing skills. I guess what I’m saying is that Nicole Scherzinger needs someone to serve as president of her fan club, I’m available. And also this Sunset Blvd. attention is much deserved for a person whose talent has been in plain sight this whole time.     It Was Patti All Along When [Marvel Mania](, the exhausting, suffocating takeover that has defined much of the last decade of entertainment began, I don’t think a single person would have predicted that the best performance we’d get in a MCU television series would be from [Patti LuPone](. It might have even seemed preposterous that the Broadway legend, who has famously high standards for the kind of work she chooses to do, would even be in such a project. Yet here we are in the days after [Agatha All Along]( aired the superb “Death’s Hand in Mine,” still stunned by her tour de force in that episode. Agatha All Along is, by my count, the 23rd MCU television series. (Give me at least five minutes to seek shelter before pummeling me with “well, actually!” emails rightfully correcting me.) The range in quality in those shows is as wide as…The Hulk’s shoulder span? (Look, I’m not a full-fledged Marvel person. I’m trying here.) But there’s no denying some excellent acting has come from these series, work that is often dismissed because of the genre—a practice I hate! The particular subset of what is now the [WandaVision](-verse, which spinoff Agatha All Along is now a part of, has featured some of Marvel’s best performances. Certainly Elisabeth Olsen and Kathryn Hahn, whose turn was so surprising, deliciously feral, and eerily funny that Agatha All Along was built around in the first place. Still, I love that in this universe of hugely popular superheroes and A-list movie stars leading their own shows, it’s a supporting turn by Patti LuPone as a tarot card-reading witch that people are calling the best MCU television performance yet. Give Patti LuPone that Emmy nod, folks! (Shockingly, and unjustly, it would be her first! A world where Patti LuPone has no Emmy nominations is not a world I want to live in! [What is grief](, but love being impossible to ever attain again because Patti is nominationless?!) The season-best episode centers on LuPone’s character Lilia, revealing her backstory. The episode jumps back and forth in time, appropriate for an episode focused on a witch with a talent for seeing the future. Sometimes we’re with her as she’s learning her craft, centuries ago. Sometimes we’re revisiting her confused state of mind just seconds before. Despite having just been betrayed by Teen (Joe Locke), her unmooring kaleidoscope of memories is point her towards her calling: She’s supposed to continue to the next trial, help Teen and Agatha, and bring Jen (Sasheer Zamata) with her to reunite the coven. The patchwork of flashbacks both serve to make sense of her erratic behavior, which had been tossed off as just another kooky divination witch. But it also serves to piece together fully who Lilia is, a witch who wasn’t sure what her life has meant or could mean, because it’s always been presented to her out of order. LuPone is fantastic in these scenes, grieving an existence that may have seemed purposeless, and overwhelmed at her realization, finally, of what that purpose is. As she does the tarot card reading that will save the witches and allow them to continue on The Witches’ Road, she self-realizes. She pulls a Queen of Cups, revealing that she is an “empathetic, intuitive, inner voice to be trusted.” The Three of Pentacles indicates what’s been missing: a coven, which she now has. The Knight of Wands represents her past as a fighting spirit. [ Each card is a moving tribute to the strength of a witch who had been crippled with self-doubt. LuPone’s depiction of discovery and emotion is heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time, a masterclass in subtlety—all delivered while wearing a cheesy Glinda the Good Witch costume that your friend who likes Halloween too much bought at a mall costume shop. (We can’t get into every plot detail here…) To say anymore would spoil. But for a genre awash with heroes’ journeys of all kinds, Lilia’s in this episode is my favorite yet. And that my old gay self is here waxing poetic about a freaking episode of a Marvel series, of all things? Well, that just echoes the message of the episode itself: Never underestimate the power of Patti LuPone.     A Gloriously Unusual Movie to See This Weekend Memoir of a Snail is absolutely the first animated film I’ve ever seen that made me cry over how heartachingly adorable it is while getting me to laugh out loud about foster parents who are swingers. In theaters this weekend, it’s a small film when compared to others in this year’s Oscar race, like [Inside Out 2]( and [The Wild Robot](. It centers on Gracie, an Australian girl who narrates her life to her pet snail. Things start out melancholy and sweet before turning irreverent and ribald (this is not a kids’ movie), and has a throughline of relentless trauma. Gracie is orphaned, separated from her twin, bullied, ignored by her foster parents, and catfished. To make up for the loss in her life, she surrounds herself with the comfort animal from her childhood: snails, both real ones and tchotchkes that she hoards. The tonal journey the film takes you on is a nonstop surprise, but there’s a sweet sentimentality and mischievous sense of humor to all of it. Plus, Gracie is so danged cute. If I were to describe the film, I would say it is like Marcel the Shell With Shoes On meets Precious. Make of that what you will.     I Both Hate and Love Netflix is releasing a holiday rom-com called Hot Frosty. It is a film that answers the question, “What if Frosty the Snowman came to life, and he was hot?” I’m serious. Take the screenwriter’s word for it: You can watch the trailer [here](.     Advertisement     This Is How You Do a Tribute Please take a look at this Bob Mackie gown [Zendaya]( wore to pay tribute to [Cher]( at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, an homage to the icon’s classic collaborations with the designer. If I was a person of energy, I would have stood up and given it an ovation when I saw it on my newsfeed.     More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed - A ranking of every single episode of Friends. Seriously! All of them! [Read more](. - We talked to E Street Band member Steve Van Zandt about Bruce Springsteen and the band’s legacy. [Read more](. - Melissa Peterman is back where she belongs: in a sitcom with Reba McEntire. [Read more](.     [See This]   - The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: The [tearjerker of the year](, but in a good way! (Now on Netflix) - Venom: The Last Dance: Watch Venom dance to an ABBA song. [It happens](! (Now in theaters) - Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: A [must-watch]( for fans of the Boss. (Now on Hulu) - Somebody Somewhere: A very special show. My favorite on TV. (Sun. on HBO) [Skip This]   - Before: Billy Crystal, yikes, what are you doing [in this mess](? (Now on Apple TV+)     [The logo for Daily Beast's Obsessed]( [TV]( [Movies]( [Reviews]( [Previews]( [TV]( [Reviews]( [Movies]( [Previews]( [Daily Beast Obsessed Facebook]( [Daily Beast Obsessed Twitter]( [Daily Beast Obsessed Instagram](   Advertisement   Was this email forwarded to you? 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