When Disney announced that it would be giving its 1937 classic Snow White the live-action treatment (after remixing popular movies Beauty & the Beast, The Jungle Book, Mulan, and Cinderella), some fans were surprised that the entertainment giant also shared that actress Rachel Zegler would be playing the titular character. Now, the West Side Story actress is opening up about the movie—set to hit theaters in March 2025 with Gal Gadot playing the Evil Queen—and how Disney modified the fairy tale to fit with her Colombian heritage.
Zegler’s casting made headlines in 2021. Today, she shared that in the upcoming film, Snow White’s name doesn’t reflect her skin color. In the original animated version, her name referenced her being someone with “skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony.” Zegler explained that Disney embraced another version of the tale that credited the name with something else.
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“It fell back to another version of Snow White that was told in history,” Zegler said in a new interview with Variety. “Where she survived a snowstorm that occurred when she was a baby, and so the king and queen decided to name her Snow White to remind her of her resilience. One of the core points in our film for any woman or young person is remembering how strong you actually are.”
In addition to particularly vocal fans calling Disney out for casting Zegler, the actress also ruffled feathers when she spoke about the story’s somewhat outdated plot.
“There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. So, we didn’t do that this time,” she told Extra in 2022, creating a viral moment that has followed the film’s promotion ever since.
She spoke about the comment in her new Variety interview, saying that some of the reactions made her “sad.”
“I would never want to box someone in and say, ‘If you want love, then you can’t work.’ Or, ‘If you want to work, then you can’t have a family,'” Zegler clarified. “It’s not true. It’s never been true. It can be very upsetting when things get taken out of context or jokes don’t land.”
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She added that the Snow White love story is present and accounted for in the new film and that fans can expect to see it on-screen. Zegler will play opposite Tony Award-nominated Andrew Burnap, who will be bringing his talents to the role of Prince Charming, who finally gets a name: Jonathan.
“The love story is very integral,” Zegler shared, reminding everyone that her previous comments had been taken out of context. “We were always doing that; it just wasn’t what we were talking about on that day.”
