With 5 Oscars under their belts between them (and plenty more nominations besides) the cast of the new Rob Marshall musical **Nine **could be the most decorated singing and dancing team to ever walk up Odeon Leicester Square’s red carpet, with more A-listers in attendance than you could shake a dictaphone at.
And though the shivering wintery scene in London may have felt like a million miles away from the summer spent in Rome and Milan shooting the film, the likes of Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz and Nicole Kidman soon made everyone forget where they were, or, in some cases, even who they were.
Leading the troupe up into the world premiere was the production’s leading man, Daniel Day-Lewis (who plays the flawed film director Guido), complete with cowboy-style shirt and fast boots, he quickly nipped into his seat, barely uttering a word.
Fortunately his mentor (of sorts) in the film, Dame Judi Dench, playing the wise costume master Lilli, was slightly more forthcoming, but was quick to dismiss any sort of potential politics going on between such a large and star-studded cast:
“What everyone wants to know is whether we didn’t get on well, and I’m afraid we all did. We all hung out together, we spent lunch together – no-one split for lunch or anything. I was in make-up between Kate and Fergie, so that was a riot.”
Oscar-nominated Kate Hudson and The Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie, two of the precious few not to have a statue of a little golden man kicking about their attics somewhere, both sang up a storm in the movie, though the latter wasn’t able to make it last night.
Kate was keen to sing director Rob Marshall’s praises (pun intended, and apologized for): “I didn’t know I could belt a high E! Rob squeezed it out of me, somehow. The confidence is something I’ve never really had before – that’s something Rob does, builds that confidence in you – and Rob managed to give us all that belief that we could all do it….”
Nicole Kidman was impressed too, saying: “I remember one day when I saw Kate dancing and I thought ‘Oh my gosh!’, and I love that you discover that about her in this film, what a great dancer she is.”
**Chicago **director Marshall explained how he went about getting such a great cast for his film, contacting screen legend Sophia Loren to play Guido’s mother first of all:
“It was bit by bit, step by step really – it was Sophia Loren I called first, because, as I said to her, ‘I can’t do this film without you, I need your beautiful spirit to lead this film’ and she said yes and we were off and running.”
“Next I found Penelope Cruz – I knew she was going to be in this film, but I didn’t know what part, and she auditioned for three different roles [eventually playing Carla, Guido’s mistress]. It’s so clear it was her role, and she’s fantastic at it.”
Penelope herself said just how grateful she was for the role, adding: “I really wanted to work with Rob Marshall. I’ve been a really big fan of musicals since I was a little girl, and I always wanted to do one, but they’re very hard to find, and I knew Rob was the very best possible person in the world to do it with – and what an amazing cast to work with!”
Nine is out in cinemas on on December 18.