Nicole and DNA co-star? They’ve got chemistry!
NICOLE KIDMAN is excited about the actor who will share the stage with her as scientists racing to unlock the ‘secret of life’.
Stephen Campbell moore, who was in the original casts of awardwinning plays The History Boys and Chimerica, will join nicole in anna Ziegler’s play Photograph 51, about the pioneering Dna research undertaken by biochemist Rosalind Franklin at King’s College, london.
nicole will play Franklin and Campbell moore will portray maurice Wilkins, who collaborated with her on some of the early Dna research.
The actress was thrilled when told Campbell moore had agreed to play the role.
She had seen him in Chimerica and said she was ‘excited’ to be working with him. Other roles are still being cast, and the full ensemble will be contracted within a month.
michael Grandage, who is directing and producing the play with business partner James Bierman, explained that Wilkins, together with James Watson and Francis Crick, were working in ‘this total laboratory hothouse, because they all wanted to crack the Dna code’, but within the drama, Wilkins is the biggest male role.
‘There was a very strong bond between two people working together,’ Grandage said, though he stressed there was no suggestion of any romantic attachment. The three men received the nobel prize for their Dna discoveries, but Franklin was denied such glory because the award was made in 1962, four years after her death from cancer at the age of 37.
The rule is that the prize is not awarded posthumously.
Grandage will meet up with his leading lady in new York next weekend to discuss aspects of the play and talk about Genius, the film he directed in which Kidman appears alongside Colin Firth, Jude law, laura linney and Dominic West.
Grandage will also stop off in los angeles to participate in distribution meetings about Genius, his film directorial debut, with the lionsgate studio.
early rehearsals for Photograph 51 will take place in July, but the bulk will be in august.
Performances start at the noel Coward Theatre from September 5, with 20,000 seats, 25 per cent of the total, on sale for £10.
Other tickets will cost £35, £65 — and £105 for premium seats, not including £12.60 booking fees.