Josh Lucas’ Broadway gig nixed big plans for Bali move

Actor Josh Lucas had to put family plans to relocate to Bali on hold after landing a role in Broadway play The Parisian Woman.
The Sweet Home Alabama star features as Uma Thurman’s onstage husband in House of Cards creator Beau Willimon’s political comedy, which began its limited run in November (17).
Lucas is thoroughly enjoying his return to the Great White Way, but admits he would be thousands of miles away had he not been invited to take on the big gig, his first Broadway role since appearing in a 2005 revival of The Glass Menagerie.
The actor explains he and his ex-wife, Jessica Ciencin Henriquez, had wanted to enroll their son, five-year-old Noah, in a groundbreaking school on the Indonesian island, so they were all gearing up to pack up their lives in New York and leave.
“When I got this play, we had chosen to move to Bali,” Lucas shared on breakfast show Today. “There’s an amazing school in Bali, called Green School of Bali… The tagline of the school is to ‘create the next generation of environmental leaders’.
“The school is deep in the jungle, and everything in the school is recycled; they make their own buildings out of bamboo, they grow their own food, and they really teach their children, as an international school…, the idea of what’s happening in the world right now with the environment, so it would be the ultimate transition from New York City to the jungle of Bali.”
It’s not clear if Lucas and Henriquez, who divorced in 2014 after two years of marriage, have simply put their plans on ice or if they have axed the idea completely, but the 46-year-old will soon be wrapping up The Parisian Woman as the cast takes its final bow on 11 March (18).
In the meantime, Josh and his ex have found a way to keep their family life with Noah intact after their divorce.
“We ‘birdnest’, in that my son stays in the nest (family home) and me and his mum come and go from the nest, so he’s always in his bedroom, (he’s) got his dog…,” Josh explained. “The idea behind it is, ‘Look, your relationship didn’t work out between the two of you, so it shouldn’t really be his (Noah’s) problem, it should be your problem’, meaning that you come and go rather than him have to go back and forth between two homes (sic).”
The parenting method has so far worked wonders for the family, especially for Noah: “He loves it,” Josh smiled. “For him it’s not that different; it’s his house, so he stays in the same place.”