Ahead of the theatrical release and subsequent Oscar nominations for Steven Spielberg‘s remake of the musical “West Side Story,” the film hit a major obstacle. Lead actor Ansel Elgort was alleged to have committed sexual assault against a 17-year-old girl in 2014. The allegation surfaced in June 2020 in the run-up to the original release of “West Side Story” (eventually delayed due to the pandemic), a claim he vehemently denied.
And maybe the delay strategy worked. Initially scheduled for Christmas 2020, when the film finally came out a year later, December 2021, most of the outrage had seemingly blown over, and Elgort was back on the red carpet like nothing happened (he’s currently enjoying lead status on the HBO Max series, “Tokyo Vice” too).
However, that doesn’t mean some of the cast wasn’t affected. Speaking with Elle Magazine recently, his co-star Rachel Zegler criticized the media (and seemingly the public and social media users) for putting her in the position of answering for Elgort’s behavior during interviews to promote the film.
“It was a real gut punch, honestly,” Zegler said of always being questioned about Elgort’s alleged sexual assault during press rounds for “West Side Story.” “I reverted back to this brain space I was in [back in] June of 2020 when the accusation surfaced. We were in the middle of the first wave of lockdown, and there was nothing to do but doom-scroll. Those days were some of the worst mental health days I’ve ever had. I was sitting there, having just turned 19, on the precipice of what was promised to be the biggest moment in my life, and was being held accountable [by the public] for accusations that not only had nothing to do with me but were made about a situation that was said to have occurred [five] years prior to when I had met and worked with this person. With no thought to the fact that I was also 17 when I met this person, 17 when I worked with them, 17 and 18 when I had to do love scenes.”
“[There is] inherent discomfort that comes with that realization that there are tons of people who think that you have to answer for the actions of an adult male who can speak for himself,” she continued.
The young actress finalized her comments by sharing her own sympathies for Elgort’s accuser.
“In the grand scheme of things with this woman who has come forward with these allegations, I cannot imagine what she had to go through,” she said. “If I’m sitting here thinking that those days were traumatizing for me, I don’t pretend to know. I could never know. I really don’t have anything to do with this conversation, and I’m looking forward to moving past it.”
Zegler certainly has a point, given she was simply a co-worker of Eglort, not his employer or even the director of the film. Spielberg and Warner Bros. obviously dodged a lot of heat themselves during the Elgort allegation, which was bizarre enough.
The next couple of projects for Zegler include the DC Comics film “Shazam! Fury of The Gods,” being released on December 16, and she is currently shooting Disney’s live-action “Snow White” movie in London that co-stars Gal Gadot as the evil queen.