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…
@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!’”
“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. 
“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.
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).
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…
Read the full interview: thetimes.co.uk/article/a-mari…
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