Rachel Zegler has been forced to deal with hateful critique of her race in regards to her Snow White casting for months now, but it isn’t the first time her identity has been called into question. In a new interview with Allure, Zegler shared that “a bunch of white executives” asked her to “prove [her] identity to them” multiple times while casting Steven Spielberg’s 2021 West Side Story remake.
“There’s confusion because I don’t have a single ounce of Latin in my name,” the actor, whose mother is Colombian, continued, recalling that when she was in the running for lead character Maria, executives “kept calling to ask if I was legit. I remember thinking, Do you want me to bring my abuelita in? I will. I’ll bring her into the studio if you want to meet her.” Zegler ended up landing the role when she was just 17 years old, launching her into the Hollywood mainstream.
“It’s an interesting experience being part of that diaspora in the current climate we live in,” she reflected. “But I love being Colombian.”
Zegler has had to (gracefully) address variations of this topic throughout the production of Snow White. To the folks who can’t handle a non-white person in the role, Zegler had this to say in a Variety cover story last year: “I grew up in a house where [Brandy] was Cinderella. Obviously, we watched the cartoon. But a child’s mind is the most amazing thing, where it’s just like, ‘OK, that’s Cinderella.’ But the blond-haired, blue-eyed, blue-dress Cinderella from the 1950s cartoon is also Cinderella. Also, Hilary Duff is Cinderella in A Cinderella Story… I was able to co*prehend those things at a young age.”
As Zegler has experienced firsthand, the attacks on DEI initiatives in this country aren’t going away any time soon. “My only prayer for the future of diversity and inclusion,” she reflected to Allure, “is that we invest in and nurture talent no matter what they look like.”