Remember when they were competing to play Nancy in ”Oliver!”?
Before they were household names for theater geeks, Rachel Tucker and Samantha Barks were a pair of contestants on the BBC reality series I'd Do Anything, vying for the role of Nancy in a major West End revival of Oliver! Despite their sterling vocals, neither of them won the role, but they've certainly made good in the ensuing years.
Tucker, who made her Broadway debut last season in The Last Ship, is now returning to the New York stage as Elphaba in Wicked. Barks, meanwhile, famously played Éponine in the film version of Les Misérables, and is now taking on the title role in the new stage version of Amélie, A New Musical, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Even back in 2008, when they were forced to go head-to-head singing "Memory" for Cats songwriter Andrew Lloyd Webber, we knew they were going to be stars.