Snow White: Rachel Zegler Got 'Really Nervous' About One Thing In Disney's Remake
Rachel Zegler had one big — and rather surprising — concern when it came to her upcoming "Snow White" adaptation. During an installment of Variety's "Actors on Actors" series, Zegler spoke to fellow Disney live-action princess Halle Bailey, who recently played Ariel in the live-action adaptation of "The Little Mermaid." Asked about filming her "Snow White" movie, which co-stars Gal Gadot as the fairytale's evil queen, Zegler said that she wants to approach the project with care and respect, thanks to the fact that the animated classic is so beloved.
"This is an iconic thing that people really care about," Zegler told Bailey about playing the dwarf-befriending Snow White. "I don't want to mess this up for anybody, including myself. The writers and Marc Webb and our entire producing team ... it's a bit different story wise. We were able to do 'Whistle While You Work,' which made me really happy and excited. I was really nervous more about the technical element. That first-look image went out ... and there's a lot of CGI in the film."
As Zegler put it, she has yet to work with this level of CGI in her career, and dealing with so many computer-generated images in the film did give her some pause — especially because of the way it forced her to film some scenes.
While filming Snow White, Rachel Zegler filmed some scenes solo
As Rachel Zegler told Halle Bailey, one particular beloved song — "Whistle While I Work," which fans likely remember from the classic animated movie — was basically performed completely alone while they were shooting. The song in the movie features friendly woodland creatures helping Snow White with her chores, but obviously, director Marc Webb decided not to try and train any squirrels, mice, or deer. Still, Zegler said it was hard to get used to.
"Most of that day was spent singing to nothing," Zegler said, also noting Bailey's appearance in "The Little Mermaid" — another CGI-heavy film. "There was a lot of puppetry and CGI in post," she continued. "It was really intense. There's a lot of bloopers of me tossing a broom and letting it fall to the ground because that's apparently how you toss things off to CGI characters."
At the end of the day, Zegler had a good attitude about it all: "But it's so much fun!"
Rachel Zegler's Snow White casting led to unfortunate backlash
Ever since she was cast as Snow White in Disney's modern, live-action adaptation, Rachel Zegler has been courting controversy — largely because of a specific group of bad-faith actors on the Internet. Zegler, who is of Colombian and Polish descent, is a woman of color playing the beloved character, and it's unfortunate and infuriating that the "West Side Story" and "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" star is dealing with such pushback.
After responding to the negativity on X (formerly known as Twitter) with a post about how any child in the world can become a Disney princess, Zegler later commented on the need to slightly update the narrative of "Snow White," correctly pointing out that the fairy tale hasn't aged perfectly. "People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it's like, yeah, it is—because it needed that," Zegler told Vanity Fair in 2022. "It's an 85-year-old cartoon, and our version is a refreshing story about a young woman who has a function beyond 'Someday My Prince Will Come.'"
Zegler's "Snow White" is currently set to release on March 21, 2024.