The Juliets are closing ranks against Marvel stans. Broadway’s current Juliet, Rachel Zegler, decried the racist treatment of recent West End Juliet Francesca Amewudah-Rivers in an October 22 Teen Vogue interview. “I think she was failed by the people around her,” Zegler said. “You need to protect people when you make a vow to cast them in something where you know — you can’t act stupid, you know how the general public is going to act because they’ve been acting that way for years.” Amewudah-Rivers, who played Juliet opposite Tom Holland earlier this year in a Jamie Lloyd–directed Romeo and Juliet production, faced racist attacks online even before the show went up. “Following the announcement of our Romeo & Juliet cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed toward a member of our company,” a statement from The Jamie Lloyd Company read. “This must stop.” No cast or crew responded publicly, including Tom Holland, famously in a relationship with Zendaya.

Zegler, however, did tweet in support of Amewudah-Rivers at the time. “i CANNOT wait to see this production!” she wrote. “GO FRANCESCA!!!!!!!!” While Amewudah-Rivers was “thankful” in a call, Zegler added “it took absolutely nothing out of me, and I told her not to thank me for that.” “It is basic human decency and basic kindness,” she continued. Ahead of the show’s premiere, 800 Black performers signed a letter of solidarity condemning racial abuse. “Too many times Black performers — particularly Black actresses — are left to face the storm of online abuse after committing the crime of getting a job on their own,” the letter said. Zegler echoes that to Teen Vogue: “You need to fucking say something. You need to move quickly and make sure that she is protected.”