Every fairytale has a beginning.
Rachel Zegler talked about her audition process for the controversial “Snow White” remake during her appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday.
The 23-year-old actress revealed that she was cast in the Disney film before the world saw her performance in 2021’s “West Side Story” directed by Steven Spielberg.
“I actually got a really glowing recommendation from Steven Spielberg to Marc Webb, who directed ‘Snow White,’” Zegler shared on the late-night ABC show.
“And I also got a text from Steven kind of alluding to the fact that I had gotten the part before I found out,” she said. “I wished him a Happy Father’s Day and he texted me a bunch of apple emojis as a response.”
Zegler joked that Spielberg, 78, “was giving Taylor Swift easter eggs” about her casting in “Snow White.”
The Golden Globe winner’s audition for the film was done in extreme secrecy.
“With all these Disney things, it’s like Marvel, Star Wars, Disney live-actions, you have no idea what you’re reading,” she explained. “It’ll say like, ‘Untitled Disney live-action film,’ and the sides will have different names. It’ll say like, ‘Amber and Jeff.’ So I was reading for ‘Amber’ in ‘untitled Disney live-action.’”
“And it wasn’t until I had that first read with Marc Webb on Zoom that he had let it slip that I was actually conversing with Dopey. And then in the back of my head I went, ‘Okay,’” Zegler added.
Regarding doing live action alongside CGI characters like the seven dwarfs, Zegler called it “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“It’s amazingly rewarding when you see it and you complete it to say this is the thing that we did,” she told Kimmel, 57. “But you basically do three different versions of every scene. You do one with humans in the space, so you’re having an emotional connection with somebody. And then you do it with puppets, in our case, for Dopey and Grumpy and these iconic characters.”
“And then you do what’s called a clean pass, where it’s essentially me doing ‘Whistle While You Work’ to nobody, dancing and singing,” Zegler went on. “And the thing you have to do with props, because they need to turn the prop into a GC prop and put it into the CG character’s hand, you just drop it on the floor. That cut of the movie I hope comes out somebody, where it’s just me dropping things on the floor.”
The “Snow White” remake, out March 21, has faced backlash ever since Disney’s decision to replace the fairy tale’s seven dwarfs with CGI to “avoid reinforcing stereotypes” from the original 1937 film.
Zegler has been lambasted by critics for her criticism of the animated movie. In 2022, she called Prince Charming a “stalker” and promised to bring “a modern edge” to the remake.
After Zegler went on a social media rant against those who voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, fans vowed to boycott the film. Zegler is also in an alleged feud with co-star Gal Gadot over their opposing views on the Israel-Palestine war.
Due to the many controversies, Disney hosted a low-key premiere for the film in Los Angeles over the weekend instead of a usual media-packed red carpet.
Zegler and Gadot, 39, were both at the premiere and took pictures together despite their reported drama.
“Snow White” is in theaters on Friday.
