![]() ![]() “It was the best advice anyone could have possibly given me. “Steven told me to use the fear that I was having over being a first-timer in the movie industry to propel my character forward and to use it in my scenes,” recalled Zegler, who beat 35,000 actresses from around the world for the role. Zegler was in high school when she auditioned for the movie her only professional singing job prior to West Side Story was performing at weddings. We are everywhere!” Rachel Zegler, a Latina of Colombian descent from New Jersey, makes her big-screen debut as romantic heroine Maria. There are so many talented people among Latinos, and Jennifer Lopez isn’t the only one. “The representation of Latino and Hispanic performers in Hollywood has a long way to go, but we are starting to change that. “I am so proud every single Latino character is portrayed by a Latino actor, and that is very important because we are authentically showing what it means to be Latin,” said Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for playing Anita in the original 1961 film and appears as Doc’s widow, Valentina, in the new film. The new movie still has plenty of grand song and dance sequences, including fan favorites “America” and “Tonight.” It also places more focus on prejudice, racism, xenophobia, and poverty. Spielberg collaborated with writer Tony Kushner and Sondheim on the updated story, which tells a classic tale of forbidden love and bitter rivalry between two street gangs in 1950s New York. I first listened to the West Side Story album when I was 10, and it’s been part of me ever since.” His new West Side Story is based not on the 1961 film, but the original 1957 Broadway musical created by director-choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein, book writer Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who died last Friday at the age of 91-two weeks before the new movie’s December 10 release. I wanted to tell this story for many years. ![]() And it’s been a childhood dream to make West Side Story. “But I was willing to take a risk, because great stories should be told over and over again to reflect different perspectives and contemporary values. “There’s a lot of risk when you take a masterpiece and make it distinctly different,” he said. His new film is Spielberg’s first musical it’s also, of course, a reimagining of a beloved Broadway production that was already adapted into an Oscar-winning film. “To be honest, making West Side Story was intimidating,” Steven Spielberg said at the movie’s lavish premiere in New York on Monday evening. ![]()
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