Rachel Zegler talks 'Snow White,' backlash to 'woke' casting

Rachel Zegler posing with her hair up in a black velvet suit with no shirt visible underneath

Oct. 2, 2024 4:08 PM PT

When Disney in 2021 announced Rachel Zegler as the lead in its “Snow White” revival, some consumers pledged to boycott the film for its “woke” casting. To them, a Colombian actor wasn’t qualified to play a princess with a canonical history of having “skin as white as snow.”

So the production turned to some other history.

“It fell back to another version of ‘Snow White,’” Zegler told Variety in an interview published Wednesday, “where she survived a snowstorm that occurred when she was a baby.”

“So the king and queen decided to name her Snow White to remind her of her resilience,” she said. And resilient the 23-year-old actor has been amid the backlash she’s received since stepping into the role.

Hours after Disney’s casting announcement, Zegler seemingly addressed those who opposed the idea of a Latina Snow White, writing in a since-deleted X post, “yes i am snow white no i am not bleaching my skin for the role.”

Debate about Zegler’s casting has bubbled up several times since, including after a slew of 2022 red-carpet interviews wherein the “West Side Story” actor said her rendition of the iconic princess wouldn’t spend her days pining over a man. She also pointed to several outdated elements from the 1937 film, including that the prince “literally stalks” Snow White.

Die-hard fans interpreted Zegler’s analysis as “disdain” for the animated classic — more proof that she wasn’t fit for the role.

“In all honesty, it made me sad that it was taken in such a way, because I believe that women can do anything. But I also believe that they can do everything,” Zegler told Variety. “The love story is very integral. A lot of people wrote that we weren’t doing [that storyline] anymore — we were always doing that; it just wasn’t what we were talking about on that day.”

Criticisms resurfaced again last year, after the Daily Mail published unofficial photos taken on the set of the film. In the photos, a stand-in for Zegler was photographed along with her band of woodland friends — whose diversity in height and ethnicity some interpreted as a “politically correct” spin on the original “Seven Dwarfs.” The idea of casting little people had previously proven controversial after Emmy winner Peter Dinklage called out the “hypocrisy” of Disney being “very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White” while telling a “backward” story that makes caricatures of dwarf people.

The photos sparked more criticism on social media from people upset about the diverse casting, including Zegler’s, and the departure from the story’s classic canon.

Around that time, Zegler thanked her fans for defending her while requesting she not be tagged in any more of the “nonsensical discourse,” writing on social media, “i really, truly do not want to see it.”

She also posted photos of herself in costume as Snow White when she was a little girl, writing, “i hope every child knows they can be a princess no matter what.”

The Golden Globe nominee has seen support not only from her fans but from fellow Disney princesses including Halle Bailey, who was similarly scrutinized for playing a locs-wearing Ariel in the 2023 version of “The Little Mermaid.”

“we love you so much ... truly the perfect princess,” she wrote to Zegler last year on X.

When “The Little Mermaid” premiered in May 2023, Bailey had a message for the young girls watching: “I just hope that they know they are worthy and we deserve to be in these spaces. I hope that they see themselves through me on the screen. I’m just grateful to be here.”

R&B legend Brandy, who played Cinderella in 1997, echoed Bailey’s sentiment in an email to Variety. In it, she advised Zegler to remember her true audience.

“You’re not taking on this role to fit the mold of the critics,” Brandy said. “You’re doing this for every little Colombian girl who has yet to see themselves in a role like a Disney princess. You’re doing this for the little girl that you once were, who grew up without that representation of her Colombian culture. You are showing her that anything is possible for someone who looks like her, and that is the most important job in the world.”

“I grew up in a house where that was Cinderella,” Zegler told Variety of Brandy’s portrayal of the housekeeper-turned-royal.

“A child’s mind is the most amazing thing,” she continued, “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 comprehend those things at a young age,” she told the outlet, and she is confident her viewers will do the same.

“Snow White” comes to theaters next March after being delayed a year because of the 2023 actors’ strike.