Love Never Dies Star Sierra Boggess on Becoming Part of Andrew Lloyd Webber's World

Sierra Boggess is the latest leading lady to enter the Andrew Lloyd Webber pantheon. She is starring as Christine Daae in Love Never Dies, the composer’s long-awaited follow-up to The Phantom of the Opera. A Colorado-born New York resident, Boggess, 27, was cast in the new musical while still appearing on Broadway as Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Her green eyes glistening with excitement, Boggess took time out for an extended chat with Broadway.com in her Adelphi Theatre dressing room, her so-called “inspiration board”—photos of other actresses and performers from whom she draws strength—visible on the wall behind her. (She got the idea, she said, from Mermaid co-star Sherie Rene Scott; the collage includes Nicole Kidman, Maria Callas and Barbra Streisand. “Always,” Boggess says, “Streisand.”) Our conversation took place before her March 9 opening night, but any nerves were in no way evident as the burgeoning star opened up about her greatest challenge to date.

How is the show going?
It’s so funny. I was just on my dinner break with Ramin [Karimloo, her co-star] and we were saying that we forget that we’re opening because we have to stay in that place of just serving the material. But I do feel like it’s happened so fast. There are times on stage where I think, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” but on the other hand, I’ve been living with this material for so long—a year and a half.

It’s interesting that you, an American abroad, are here playing a non-American in a show that is set in Coney Island, with most of your U.K. supporting cast playing Americans.
It’s fun being over here because the play takes place in America, and so apart from me and Joe [Millson, who plays Raoul] and our child, we are the only ones that are British and everyone else has to be American. They’re all doing American accents, and I’m doing British. I love it; it’s really fun.

Did you ever think, “Wait a minute! I’m not English!”?
No, because I’m an actor. It’s a good thing I studied RP [Received Pronunciation] dialect in school. And anyway, Christine’s not British, she’s European. But it was the same thing when I did the first Phantom in Las Vegas in a production where I was lucky enough to have Hal [director Harold Prince] set [a shortened version of] the show on me.

How does the pressure with a sequel of this nature compare to The Little Mermaid, where you had to confront people’s memories of a beloved film?
With Mermaid, I was aware of that pressure and of the comparisons but because it was my [Broadway] debut, I was just focused on how much I was enjoying what was happening. With this show, I know not to get sucked into everyone’s comparisons and how big this show could potentially be and all that stuff. And I feel very lucky, I have to say, because Jack O’Brien, our director, is so in my head on stage that it really keeps me focused on exactly what I’m supposed to be doing all the time. His big word for us as a company is, “Discover. Never stop discovering. When you’re on that stage, never get caught up in the fact you’re telling a story.” He wants us to live it on stage and because he demands that of us, I won’t allow myself in my head to go anywhere else, like, “I wonder what they’re thinking” or second-guessing myself. I feel as if I’m living this show and this story and her story.

That sounds like a properly zen-like attitude during what must be a crazy time.
I’ve been working on it! And I’ve had some good therapy in my life. [Laughs.] I’ve learned the art of acceptance, and it’s been good in my personal life and I’ve sort of carried it on stage with me. I have accepted that people aren’t perhaps going to love what I’m doing and are going to watch this show through their own filter. But the cool thing for me is that when I sing [the title song] “Love Never Dies,” it’s like an anthem; I’m so in there that it’s like a thank you to love in general. In my head, I’m celebrating love and I’m celebrating Andrew Lloyd Webber because God bless that man for writing this aria. And because I’m doing that with the character, I can do that with my personal life as far as batting away all the negative energy that inevitably does come with a show like this.

No racing home after every performance to scan the Internet?
That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do—ever! Because I love this piece so much, I can’t let anybody talk bad about it, but I’m also not naive in thinking nobody is going to talk bad about us because, of course, they are. Jack put it brilliantly: ”Nobody’s going to thank us for doing this.” He’s right, but the thing is, even if you’re skeptical, you still want to know what happened to [the Phantom and Christine]. So, yeah, I can’t read any of that stuff online.

What relation do you find between this Christine, newly arrived in 1907 Coney Island, and the character we know from the first Phantom?
Well, she still has that darkness of the first one but she was 18 then and now she’s 28, which is what I’ll be in May, and with a child, which I will not have in May—

Yes, not unless you’re hiding something.
The corsets wouldn’t allow it [laughs]. But, you know, I’m different now to who I was at 18. Wow, I’m glad I didn’t marry at 18 who I thought I might. For Christine, she realizes now that love has no boundaries and that is sort of scary but that the Phantom brought out something in her that no one else has, and vice versa, so when she crosses the sea to New York, she doesn’t know she’s going to find him but she suspects she might. And when she sees the aria that has been written for her, which is “Love Never Dies,” she knows it's him as soon as she starts playing the notes—just like we all know Andrew Lloyd Webber when we hear a song that’s his. There's something the Phantom unlocks in her in [the song] "Love Never Dies" that she's been feeling. And denying.

The ending—let’s not give anything away!—may surprise some audience members. What’s your reaction to it?
I actually thought that’s the only way you can sum this up. When she sings the aria and she has this awakening of, “Oh my God, this is the stuff of life,” then what can she do? She feels more alive inside but how can it ever be a happy ending? It’s shocking and people are in tears. Andrew said in an interview that he didn’t know if he could ever watch a full staging, it’s so devastating.

And yet, you don’t look in any way wrung-out.
You know, because of how draining this show is, in a good way, I actually feel really alive after the show. Before I started this I saw [Latvian opera singer] Elina Garanca do Carmen here and in New York and I was blown away; the fearlessness she had was so inspiring. I feel like I can’t have fear in this part. Christine carries with her a certain amount of fear, but I can’t have any inhibitions up there.