Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis is to star in a new West End adaptation of hit movie Fatal Attraction.
Mild-mannered Charlotte from the cult TV series is to take on the role of wronged wife Beth Gallagher, in the stage version of the story that terrifies anyone who has ever come close to having an extra-marital fling.
Davis starts rehearsals in London tomorrow, hot on the heels of campaigning for elephants in Africa.
She said making her West End debut was a dream come true: “I definitely grew up thinking what I would do was theatre. And for anyone who has dreamed of doing theatre, the West End is right up there. From a historical point of view, it's more important than Broadway — Broadway is exciting and I’ve done that. It’s the culmination of any theatre geek’s dream.”
Natascha McElhone will play femme fatale Alex Forrest, the role made famous by Glenn Close in the 1986 film with Michael Douglas. Douglas’s character Dan Gallagher, the married New York lawyer who puts his life in jeopardy through his affair with gorgeous but obsessive Forrest, will be played by Mark Bazeley.
But Davis said that with the possible exception of Lady Macbeth, she had less desire to play the really nasty roles: “If you think about it, brunettes were always the nice ones. Try to think of a brunette who plays the bad roles. I don’t really mind. I’m happy to get work when it's something fresh and different. Though Lady Macbeth could be fun. If you want to be really bad, you should do Shakespeare.”
She said the film was “iconic” and had “lodged in the public consciousness. What is wonderful is the screenwriter has rewritten it for the stage. There are differences. But it touches all the primal instincts”. She is thrilled to be working with director Trevor Nunn, the former National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company boss: “As a theatre-geek kid he’s one of those names you’ve known all your life. I saw Cats when I was about 12.”
Davis, 48, has been to London many times for publicity for Sex and the City, and appeared briefly in The Exonerated at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in 2006. “But that was for a short time. To be really here and get to be part of the whole spring theatre season is wonderful.” She has brought her two-year-old daughter with her and putting the child to bed will be a priority before the play opens, restricting nights out. But she said: “London is heaven, there’s so much to do here. It's an adventure.”
Fatal Attraction runs from March 11 to June 21.
