Unless you’re a reality personality or a pop musician, stardom rarely happens overnight. It often takes years just to land that one big break. At first glance, it might appear that Rachel Zegler’s critically acclaimed turn in Steven Spielberg’s new Incarnation of “West Side Story” would fall into the former category. That’s hardly the case. As Zegler will tell you, “I auditioned at 16, I got the part at 17, filmed it at 18. It came out when I was 20.” Oh, and the kicker? Her audition process lasted 340 days (more on that later).
READ MORE: David Alvarez’s incredible “West Side Story”…Story [Interview]
As a student, Zegler had a burgeoning online presence to demonstrate her incredible singing talents and was featured in many of her high school musicals, but playing Maria in “West Side” on film was a completely different endeavor.
“This was my first professional gig besides getting to sing at people’s weddings, which was what I was doing before I was a professional actor. I was a wedding singer,” Zegler says. “So it was a huge shift for me, to all of a sudden go from playing to the last seat in the house to thinking my face was going to be 20 ft by 20 ft, just act with your eyeballs. It was that kind of learning curve, where Steven was very kind and gentle about it, but he was very much like, ‘You don’t need to be doing so much. Do less, just do less.’ Having seen the film, I think I’ve seen it eight times now, God help me, it was the best note he could have given me was just do less. Because it really was all in her eyes. And the way that he shoots Maria, the eyes are glittering the whole time.”
Over the course of our conversation, which was edited and condensed for clarity, Zegler details not only her long audition process to play Maria, but the unexpected surprise of learning she was testing for the new Disney live-action version of “Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs,” and much more.
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The Playlist: Congratulations on winning Best Actress from The National Board of Review. What was your reaction?
Rachel Zegler: It was absolutely a shock. My amazing publicist, Ashton, just came up to me after I had done a junket with Steven Spielberg and was like, “You just won best actress at National Board of Review.” I think I said something along the lines of a curse, and then I went, “What does that mean?” The movie wasn’t out yet. I don’t even know if we had premiered yet. And so, I was just beside myself. I had no idea what it meant. And I mean, it’s just a huge honor, even for people to look at that performance and think it’s worthy of anything. I just cannot believe that it’s my first professional gig and people think it’s worthy of an award. It’s crazy to me.
You have probably talked about this 20 million times already, but you did get the role in an unconventional way. And I know that you posted videos of you singing songs from the movie online, and I think that’s how it partially got out there. But at what point in the process did you think you had a legitimate shot for the role?
It was when I had to sign a contract about six months into the process. [Laughs.] So, you had to sign like a test deal, like a screen test deal. I had to get an entertainment lawyer and then a new one. It was this whole thing. And I was thinking halfway through reading it, “Oh my God, maybe this means I have a shot.” Little did I know, I still had six months more to audition. I auditioned for about 340 something days, somewhere in that realm. So, I auditioned at 16, I got the part at 17, filmed it at 18. It came out when I was 20. So it’s just this like, huge, crazy journey. But it was definitely when I met Steven for the first time, which was June of 2018. And before that, I had to just sign these nondisclosures, these photo releases. And also when the time came for my screen test, I had to sign a test deal. It freaked me out. And I thought, “Oh, shit, this might really happen for me.” Or one of us, because it was a group of us. And I was like, “He’s really serious about some of us.”
340 days of auditioning.
Yeah.
I mean, that had to be incredibly stressful.
Oh, yeah.
Was there any point where you thought it just wasn’t worth it?
Towards the end there, absolutely. I was towards the end thinking about calling and just saying, “Guys, I don’t know.” Because I was in the middle of a really huge transitional period in my life. I was a senior in high school, I was applying for colleges. I was auditioning for musical theater programs and trying to figure out what my next step was. And the only thing standing in my way was wondering whether or not this was going to change my life or my college auditions were. That’s like a huge thing when you’re 17 years old. That’s the only thing on your mind obviously, is, “What’s next? What am I going to do next?” And I was definitely over-dramatic about it at times. I used to cry myself to sleep because I hadn’t heard from these people. I was just freaking out. I had my last in-person audition for Steven, like September 5th. I read with David Alvarez, who ended up getting cast as Bernardo. And I hadn’t heard from them in months. It was the end of December, of 2018 when I heard from them again. So, it had been about two and a half months of radio silence. And then all of a sudden it was, “We want you to come in one last time.” And at that point, I think I hung up the phone, and I just cried because I was so exhausted with this process. I was like, “They must be calling me in to just let down easy, and say, ‘Hey, sorry for ruining your life for a year. You didn’t get it, kid. But we really like you and whatever.'” But then it ended up being, they called me in. I worked with Larry Moss, an acting coach right before I went in. We went through the scene, and then it was Steven, Ansel, and I in a room, and we just went through a couple together, and then he gave me the part in-person.
Did you do your college auditions anyway?
No. I got cast a week before what was supposed to be my first audition, which was just crazy timing. And the email I sent to the admissions board, I was like, “I know this sounds fake, but I need to cancel my audition because of this.” And I cited the Variety article, and I was like, “I know it seems like a lie. I swear to God I’m telling the truth.” It was a whole thing. They were very understanding and very congratulatory, but I was stressed sending them.
Please let someone else have this opportunity to do an audition.
Yes.
You talked about how you used an acting coach to go even do the auditions, but you’d never shot anything like this on film before. How did you prepare?
I mean, I had never been paid to act before, not even on stage. This was my first professional gig besides getting to sing at people’s weddings, which was what I was doing before I was a professional actor. I was a wedding singer. So it was a huge shift for me, to all of a sudden go from playing to the last seat in the house, to thinking my face was going to be 20 ft by 20 ft, just act with your eyeballs. It was that kind of learning curve, where Steven was very kind and gentle about it, but he was very much like, ‘You don’t need to be doing so much. Do less, just do less.’ Having seen the film, I think I’ve seen it eight times now, God help me, it was the best note he could have given me was just do less. Because it really was all in her eyes. And the way that he shoots Maria, the eyes are glittering the whole time. It’s a beautiful character, the way that she’s shot. And also, our crew was very patient with me. Mitch [Dubin], who was operating our camera, was just the most patient man possible.
I remember that scene right before the dance at the gym with Chino, Bernardo, Anita, and Maria in the kitchen, and Maria opens her hand, and she’s got the lipstick and the slow-motion, “Take it off. Now, turn the lipstick. Now, put it on.” And then the note was “Don’t press your lip together. It makes your face look weird.” That was the most stressful. And they were so patient with me because I was just how slow I had to move and how quickly to move my hand up to my face. I had the best crew in the whole wide world, and I love them so much. And this is their movie truly.
There were a lot of changes in terms of who sang what from the original musical to this incarnation. Didn’t Maria sing “Somewhere” in the original Broadway production? Were you disappointed you didn’t get to in the film?
“Somewhere” was part of my callback process. They had me sing it with my first in-person [with] Cindy Tolan, our casting director. In the movie, a little bit of it is sung by Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. And in the original Broadway musical, it’s actually two or one vocalist backstage. They’re not even on stage, and they’re singing it because it’s over, what’s called the dream ballet sequence, which then turns into the nightmare ballet sequence, where a bunch of ballet dancers start reenacting the rumble in ballet fashion. And then Maria wakes up from a nightmare. This time around, I think it was just such a great decision to have a character like Valentina, who has so much more life experience and therefore a frustrated perspective about why we can’t get along and why we can’t put our differences aside and focus on what we have in common and have conversations instead of conflict. I thought it was a brilliant idea beyond the fact that Valentina is played by Rita Moreno. It was just such a genius idea because the adults, which is what they’re called in the original Arthur Laurents script, the adults really feel like at the end of the story, that they’re responsible for the outcome. The whole cast leaves the stage. They’re carrying Tony’s body, and Maria is the last to leave. And who’s left onstage, but Krupke, Schrank, and Doc.
Right.
The emphasis on the adults was very subtle in the original. And I think that the emphasis on Schrank and Krupke and Valentina in this movie is less subtle. And I think it’s really important because they set a precedent for these young people. They set an example. So, having her sing “Somewhere,” I think was a really, really smart decision.
I know that you went from this to filming “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.” Was that a jarring process? No offense to the filmmakers on “Shazam,” but you just worked with Steven Spielberg on your first film, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Or was it just a fun, different experience?
It was a fun, different experience. And I also had a lot of time in between. I think we wrapped “West Side Story” about a year and a half before I started working on “Shazam.” So, it was a lot of time to kind of sit and we’re in the middle of a pandemic. I really wanted to work. I loved the first “Shazam!” So the opportunity to audition for the sequel, I was just really jazzed about it. It’s really funny you should say that because Lucy Liu put together a really lovely wrap gift for me, which was just a signed first page of the script by everybody. And David Sandberg, our director’s message to me was, “Thanks for slumming it with us between ‘West Side Story’ and ‘Snow White.'”
I don’t know if you have a start date or when you think “Snow White” is shooting do you?
So COVID-willing, it will be in the new year, but COVID is kind of a thing.
It’s totally a thing.
Definitely exists. So we’re trying to navigate that part as well.
What made you decide to even go for that role or want to do it? What about that project was exciting to you?
I mean, it was truly the director. I was really excited to work with Marc Webb. I love his movies a lot. I love how he directs. And so, I didn’t know really what I was auditioning for. I just knew it was “Untitled Disney Project.” And I met with him for the first time. I had these disguised sides that didn’t have character names on them and didn’t really give much away about what the plot was. So, when I was talking to Marc on Zoom the first time because I kind of came in late in the game to the audition process, they had already seen so many girls in a singing round that I was never really a part of. And then I read for him, he started talking, and he was like, “And then Snow turns to Dopey and says…” And I was like, “Is this Snow White?” He was like, “Yeah. Nobody told you?” I’m like, “The sides say, Jane and Max. Why would I think Snow White and Dopey?” [Laughs.] I didn’t think for a second that it was in the realm of possibility for me. And it’s honestly been an interesting experience because I’m a white Latina. So, I have a lot of privilege in this industry and I’ve never really viewed myself as other than that. And then when I got cast, it was kind of this jarring experience to know that I’m being bothered by the general public for not being Eurocentric white. You know what I mean?
Wait, was there really a lot of reaction to that? I was unaware.
There’s lot of … Yeah.
Oh geez.
I mean, I get comments every day. You just have to learn to shut it down and not care because they don’t know. They don’t know anything. They’re just faceless profiles on Twitter. But it’s something that I never imagined was in the realm of possibility for me, just as a Latina, just didn’t seem like it was something that was going to happen. So I didn’t have really any expectations or hopes or anything like that. And I had my screen test, and a couple of weeks later, I was just in Atlanta with Jack Dylan Grazer, who was in “Shazam” with me. And I get this call from my agent, that’s like, “You need to go home right now and get on the phone with Marc Webb.” And I got the part. I still to this day don’t really understand it. I still am pretty much just fascinated by the fact that they even took the time to consider me. And then all of a sudden I just had the part. We are very excited to get started. We’re still casting, so that’s also a whole part of it.
And it’s also a musical, right?
It is.
So you must already be rehearsing all the songs?
I only really know one of the new ones that Pasek and Paul have written and that was because I needed to sing it for my screen test a couple of months ago. It’s a great song. It really is Pasek and Paul at their best truly.
“West Side Story” is in theaters nationwide.