Oscar winner Nicole Kidman has announced that she will not recreate her award-winning 2015 role as a genetic scientist in the play Photograph 51 on Broadway, according to a report in the London Daily Mail.
The New York Post had reported last spring that the play would arrive on Broadway in fall 2016, and Kidman herself had announced during a post-show Q&A in fall 2015 that she hoped to take Photograph 51 to Australia and New York and to make a film version of the play. But the Mail this weekend quoted Kidman saying that while she was “keen” to reprise her role in New York, her daughters Sunday, age eight, and Faith, six, “were unhappy at the prospect because she missed too much family time.”
She said that during the London run, “It was hard, I wasn't there for bedtimes, I wasn't there for dinner and this is where a balance between work and family is impossible.... You have to make a choice and it will always be them.”
No word on whether the drama would come to New York with another actor in the lead role.
Kidman played Rosalind Franklin, the female team member who cracked the mystery of DNA, in Ziegler’s 95-minute drama about the pursuit of science, love, and success. The title refers to the 1952 x-ray diffraction image that first depicted the now-familiar double-helix structure of DNA, the genetic building block of life. Others got sole credit for the discovery when they published the information. The play also deals with Franklin's fight with cancer.
Kidman won the Evening Standard Award as Best Actress for her performance.
This would not be the New York premiere of the play as it was seen Off-Broadway in 2010. Directed by Michael Grandage, Photograph 51 officially opened September 14, 2015 at the Noel Coward Theatre on the West End, and closed November 21.
The Verdict: Critics Review Nicole Kidman in Photograph 51
Watch a trailer for Photograph 51 below:
Almost 20 Years Later, Nicole Kidman Is Back in the Theatre – and She Still Gets Stage Fright
(Updated January 16, 2017)
