Rachel Zegler, this week’s guest on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards Chatter podcast, was one of 2021’s breakout stars. Her discovery was a Cinderella — or at least an only-in-Hollywood — story: Four years ago, at the age of just 16, she was forwarded a tweet about a casting call from a person she had never met, but who admired her singing from YouTube videos; then, like 30,000 other people, she recorded an audition on her iPhone and emailed it in to a casting agency. Then, she was called back nine times over a year before ultimately being plucked out of her senior year of high school and going to work as the leading lady in a big-screen reimagining of West Side Story — a musical which had previously won the best picture Oscar, and which had long been a favorite of hers — under the direction of the most famous filmmaker in the world, Steven Spielberg. And then, having never previously appeared in a film, she knocked the assignment out of the park in one of the greatest film debuts ever, with The New York Times raving that she sings “with full-throated authority,” the National Board of Review voting her the year’s best actress and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association making her the youngest-ever and first Latina winner of its best actress in a musical or comedy Golden Globe Award.
Over the course of this episode, the 20-year-old reflects on her life before her West Side Story journey; what the casting and filming experience of West Side Story was like for her; how her life and career have been different since she shot the film; why it’s so important to her that people — especially young Latinos and Latinas — who watch this new film version of West Side Story, unlike the prior film version, will see Latino and Latina performers playing Latino and Latina characters, just as they will soon see her as the big screen’s first-ever Latina Snow White; and much more.
Source: Hollywood
