Her iteration arrives in theaters March 21 after considerable conservative backlash.
Rachel Zegler has renewed perspective on the conservative backlash against her upcoming Snow White remake.
“I interpret people’s feelings about this film as passion for it, and what an honor to be able to be a part of something that people are so passionate about,” the star told Vogue Mexico in a new profile published Monday. “We’re not always going to have the same feelings as everyone around us and all we can do is give our best.”
Disney “has found this beautiful, delicate balance between taking the animated classic that everyone knows and loves from 1937” while also “introducing it to this new generation,” teased Zegler of the adaptation. From director Marc Webb, the upcoming feature also stars Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/Rachel-Zegler-022425-553128eb435742b29d4beb38768c96d1.jpg)
Zegler was first met with outrage over her casting due to her Colombian descent, and the controversy intensified among the “anti-woke” after she called the original animated version “dated” and critiqued the prince as a “guy who literally stalks” Snow White. It reached a fever pitch last year, after Zegler spoke out against the re-election of Donald Trump. In response, the right-wing MAGA crowd has vowed to boycott the film and even urged Disney to “permanently shelve” the feature.
She last addressed the controversy late last year, telling Variety before the presidential election that the entire ordeal made her “sad.” “I’ve watched women get torn down my whole life, my whole career,” Zegler said. “We’ll watch it in the election that’s upcoming. We’re gonna witness that for a long time, I fear. Sometimes it can feel like we’re going back; it certainly felt that way when that was happening.”
Zegler also said her feminist-leaning comments about her version’s love story were misconstrued, noting that it’ll certainly feature an “integral” one. “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.’ It’s not true,” she said. “It’s never been true. It can be very upsetting when things get taken out of context or jokes don’t land. 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.”
Disney’s Snow White remake arrives in theaters March 21.