The actress has undergone a transformation from New Jersey kid with a YouTube channel to fully fledged star in the remake of #WestSideStory.

@rachelzegler talks to The Times. thetimes.co.uk/article/a-mari…
Zegler reveals that Spielberg offered her advice one morning in the film’s Brooklyn studio.

“He took me by the shoulders and said, ‘Are you scared?’ And I said, ‘I am absolutely scared.’ And he said, ‘That’s good. You should use that!’”
“And I did, for the rest of the day, and it worked. Because Maria would be petrified.” thetimes.co.uk/article/a-mari…
After a year of auditions and six months of pre-production, at 18 years old, Zegler transformed herself from a New Jersey kid with a YouTube channel and a penchant for singing in her bathroom into, well, a fully fledged star. Image
“It was a turning point in my life,” she says. “I had never imagined myself as a film actor, and suddenly it was all I wanted to do after that first day of filming.”

Zegler, now 20, is speaking via Zoom from New York.
She says that Spielberg deliberately focused on Zegler’s status as a young performer on the cusp of greatness to create an indelible connection to Maria (also on the cusp of something huge). Image
He consistently emphasised the many links between the actress and her screen alter ego, connections that had, until then, never crossed Zegler’s mind. “It was really tough to realise what parallel lives we were leading,” she says.
“I couldn’t believe how Steven had picked up on it so keenly, and how it ended up informing the way that he directed me in the emotional scenes.”

Read the full interview: thetimes.co.uk/article/a-mari…

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More from @thetimes

11 Dec
Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, the couple behind the BioNTech vaccine, are now back in the lab in the race to beat Omicron. They speak to @thetimes. thetimes.co.uk/article/bionte…
Thanks to a new variant, the vaccine they made — now commonly known as the Pfizer vaccine — is a lot less effective.

But the pair came back to tell us there was hope: and that another vaccine could be on the way.
“We never said, ‘OK, the mission is done and the goal is achieved’,” says Türeci. “We cannot predict how the virus will forever evolve.”

She’s not surprised that she is still employed in being the West’s major hope of ending a global pandemic. Image
Read 7 tweets
11 Dec
Following her rise to fame, @BrookeShields and her face defined the Eighties and became a byword for its provocative popular culture.

Her sexuality has made headlines ever since but she never felt exploited, she tells @thetimes. thetimes.co.uk/article/brooke…
Aged 56 and in the sixth decade of her career, Shields is still very much here, all cheekbones and eyebrows.

“I just keep moving,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t want to go away.”
Despite (or perhaps because of) modelling swimwear from the age of 15, Shields has spent a lifetime battling with her body image.

“I was always called the ‘athletic’ one. ‘She’s the athletic type. She’s a handsome woman. She’s a workhorse, a mule.’” She rolls her eyes. Image
Read 9 tweets
10 Dec
Taylor Swift will face a jury trial over claims that she plagiarised lyrics for Shake It Off thetimes.co.uk/article/taylor…
When the trial comes she'll be Ready For It
She's got to try and defend her Reputation
Read 6 tweets
10 Dec
That Abdul and his family might have no future in their homeland was a possibility that grew from distant fear to grim certainty within a matter of weeks thetimes.co.uk/article/refuge…
As he describes their year of turmoil, hope for what the future may hold and gratitude to the nation that gave them sanctuary is tinged with deep sadness and regret at what they have left behind

thetimes.co.uk/article/refuge… Image
With quiet pride Abdul reveals he's already found work for the local authority in Doncaster that will use his language skills to help refugees

“If it wasn’t for @refugeecouncil we wouldn’t have known what to do. Without them we’d have had big problems"

thetimes.co.uk/article/refuge… Image
Read 4 tweets
9 Dec
'It was like a rap battle, with pencils'

@willpavia spoke with Jane Rosenberg about drawing the famous defendant — and how she feels about Maxwell turning her pencil on her
thetimes.co.uk/article/ghisla…
Rosenberg is the Holbein of the Maxwell trial, a court artist capturing the principal characters and sending out scenes of the unfolding drama that reach a massive audience.

You see her pictures everywhere. “I’m going viral,” she says
Maxwell’s family, recognising the power of a portrait, have hired their own courtroom artist to knock up a sympathetic picture for their website
Read 9 tweets
9 Dec
“I tried to do right by you all, to behave with civility and decency and up to the high standards you expect of No 10.”

But how did Allegra Stratton end up taking the fall?
thetimes.co.uk/article/why-it…
Stratton, writes @HelenRumblelow, was meant to usher in a new era of Government - a softer, honest approach.

In the end Downing Street’s star hire turn into someone who made the PM ‘furious’
“It looks as though what is caught on camera is not a lie but an epiphany about moral compromise.”

“‘What is the answer?’ Stratton then asks by way of reply, because the question seems to be a different one: how far do you lie for your boss and to the nation?”
Read 9 tweets

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