After a stellar start in Hollywood, Rachel Zegler is starring in the live-action reboot of “Snow White,” which faced backlash before its release.
Zegler broke into the industry in the lead role of Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” reboot, receiving high praise for her performance. Since then, she has starred in a DC movie, the “Hunger Games” prequel movie, and now has a lead role in a Disney princess remake.
Fans criticized many aspects of “Snow White,” which premieres in theaters today, including the casting of the dwarves and modern changes to the film. Zegler has been at the center of some of the backlash, with fans complaining about the Latina actor being cast as Snow White.
The tide started to turn this week when reviews were released. Many critics praised Zegler’s performance as Snow White, as well as the movie overall.
Rachel Zegler did not like the original “Snow White.”
In 2022, Zegler told Entertainment Weekly at Disney’s D23 expo that she was scared of the original 1937 “Snow White” movie when she saw it for the first time.
“I watched it once and then I never picked it up again, like I’m being so serious. I watched it once and then I went on the ride in Disney World which was called Snow White’s Scary Adventures,” Zegler said. “Was terrified of it. Never revisited Snow White again.”
At the same event, Zegler criticized the love story aspect of the original movie.
“The original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. There is a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her,” Zegler told Extratv. “Weird, weird. So we didn’t do that this time.”
These comments sparked a backlash from fans, who thought the remake would radically change the story and that Snow White should not be played by an actor who didn’t like the original movie.
In October 2024, Zegler told Variety that her comments were misunderstood and that she had wanted to make the point that Snow White would have other goals than falling in love in the remake.
“I would never want to box someone in and say, ‘If you want love, then you can’t work.’ Or ‘If you want to work, then you can’t have a family.’ It’s not true. It’s never been true,” Zegler said. “It can be very upsetting when things get taken out of context or jokes don’t land.”
“The love story is very integral. A lot of people wrote that we weren’t doing [that storyline] anymore — we were always doing that; it just wasn’t what we were talking about on that day,” she continued.
Zegler was named after Rachel from “Friends.”
Rachel Zegler was born in 2001 to Gina Zegler, a teacher of Colombian descent, and Craig Zegler, a construction worker of Polish descent.
In 2023, Zegler said on “The Tonight Show” that her parents named her after the “Friends” character Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston. Zegler met Aniston for the first time at the People’s Choice Awards in 2024.
Zegler fell in love with theater when she was a child.
In 2021, Zegler said on the “Now We’re Talking with Drew Gasparini” podcast that she fell in love with musical theater “at a very, very young age” after watching her first Broadway show at age 4.
Zegler said she didn’t see theater as a career path until she performed in her first stage show, “Fiddler on the Roof,” at 12, and the adults around her said she was a great singer.
After that, she started posting YouTube videos of herself singing popular musical songs.
Zegler began to make a name for herself locally after getting lead roles in productions at Immaculate Conception High School in Lodi, New Jersey. She was nominated four years in a row for the Metropolitan High School Theater Awards, a high-school-focused awards show.
Zegler has returned to the theater in the past few years.
In 2024, she made her Broadway debut, starring in “Romeo + Juliet” with Kit Connor. Last week, Deadline reported that Zegler will make her West End debut starring in “Evita.”
Steven Spielberg’s reboot of “West Side Story” was Zegler’s film debut and big break.
Zegler’s first movie was also a remake.
The actress told Vogue in 2020 that she auditioned for Steven Spielberg’s reboot of “West Side Story” in 2018 after a friend sent her a tweet of the casting call–out.
Cindy Tolan, the movie’s casting director, told Metro that they saw 30,000 people before picking Zegler for the lead role of Maria.
It’s no surprise that a lot of people wanted the part. The original film was a classic and won 10 Oscars.
Zegler told Vogue that she had already applied for college before her casting, so she emailed the head of admissions at Montclair State University in New Jersey to explain why she had to put her education on hold.
It paid off. Zegler’s performance received a lot of praise, the film helped launch her career, and the movie was nominated for seven Oscars. Ariana DeBose, Zegler’s costar, won the only Oscar for the reboot, in the best supporting actress category.
Zegler met her boyfriend, Josh Andrés Rivera, on the “West Side Story” set.
Josh Andrés Rivera starred alongside Zegler in “West Side Story,” playing Chino.
The pair first sparked romance rumors in 2022 when Zegler posted a since-deleted Valentine’s Day photo on Instagram. A month later, Zegler called Rivera “the love of my life” when accepting a best actress award for “West Side Story” from the National Board of Review.
Since then, Zegler and Rivera have starred in another film together, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” Zegler played the lead role, Lucy Gray Baird, and Rivera was in a supporting role, playing Sejanus Plinth.
Zegler is a songwriter, too.
Many of the songs on Zegler’s Spotify page were written by other songwriters, but the actor has also written original songs and posted them on YouTube.
In 2021, Zegler released her first original single on Spotify, “Let Me Try,” and wrote on X that it was the “most special song I have ever written.”
In a vlog shared on YouTube that same year, Zegler said she was hesitant to release her music because she didn’t want to lose control of the narrative and have fans question who the songs were about.
Zegler’s dog is named after Leonard Bernstein.
Zegler owns a 2-year-old Goldendoodle named Leonard “Lenny” Bernstein Zegler.
The dog is named after Leonard Bernstein, the 20th-century composer who created the original score for the “West Side Story” stage show.
In an interview with Josh Horowitz published on YouTube, Zegler said she got approval from Bernstein’s children to ensure she wasn’t tarnishing the composer’s legacy.
The post 7 facts about Rachel Zegler, the star of Disney’s controversial live-action ‘Snow White’ movie appeared first on Business Insider.
