“I refuse to assimilate for anybody else’s comfort”: Rachel Zegler is staying true to herself

From finding herself at the centre of a media furore surrounding her casting as a Disney princess to winning over the critics as Evita in the West End, the actress Rachel Zegler has already endured all the highs and lows of fame. Here, she sits down with Frances Hedges to discuss how she is flourishing on her own terms

“Somebody told me the other day that I’d aged very well,” confides Rachel Zegler, raising her eyebrows in incredulity. “I was like, ‘I’m still in utero! I’m a zygote…’”

It is patently absurd to describe the 24-year-old New Jersey-born actress, whose distinctive heart-shaped face makes her a striking presence both on and off the screen, as anything other than the picture of youthful vivacity. Still, Zegler has lived through more than her fair share of ups and downs since starting her career in show business as a teenager – so perhaps it is no wonder she comes across as more mature than her years. Sitting down to chat with me at a café in New York’s West Village on a snowy January morning, she is warm, earnest and open, dressed down in jeans and a thick cardigan, with a pair of round Harry Potter spectacles perched on her nose.

“Honestly, the way people comment on women’s bodies and their faces, no matter what we say or do… It’s going to have an effect on how we perceive ourselves and the way we choose to age,” she continues. “Everybody’s doing everything they can to prevent ageing, and I don’t want to do that. It’s proof you’ve been here and lived a life. I have a mum who embraced that – she refuses to dye her hair because she loves her greys, and I love that about her. That’s the example I have going forward.”

Rachel Zegler wears silk twill dress, GUCCI. Platinum and diamond earrings; (from left) white gold and diamond ring; platinum and diamond ring; white gold and diamond ring, all TIFFANY & CO

It’s fortunate that Zegler has a strong foundation of support from her family – and such a healthy dose of common sense – because there have been plenty of people who have done their best to bring her down. The star, whose career took off from nowhere when she was selected from open auditions to play Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story aged just 17, lived through the very best and worst effects of fame last year: she became a target of relentless trolling and spiralling controversy following her casting in Disney’s 2025 Snow White live-action remake, and was scapegoated for the film’s mediocre box-office figures, only to return in force for her West End run of Evita a matter of months later. She is now poised to return to the London Palladium, the scene of her redemption – although, as she observes pointedly, “You have to have actually done something wrong in order to be redeemed” – for what is set to be an equally triumphant performance in the Broadway hit The Last Five Years.

Satin dress, BALENCIAGA. Rose gold and diamond necklace; matching bracelet, both TIFFANY & CO

What emerges from every chapter in this story of highs and lows is Zegler’s commitment to her craft. “I caught the acting bug early, because my parents took me to Broadway shows when I was very little,” says the actress, who was born in 2001 (her mother’s heritage is Colombian and her father’s Polish). “I started auditioning when I was a tween, like 11 or 12, and then just found myself unable to think about anything else.” Contrary to some unfounded nepo-baby accusations on social media – doubtless made enviously after she was named among the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2022 – no one in her family was in entertainment. She forged her own path in the industry, albeit with the full backing of her parents, who, she says, never saw her ambition as “a silly pipe dream”, instead agreeing to pay for her singing lessons and help her travel to auditions. Like many of her Gen Z peers, she exploited the power of technology to her advantage, putting out YouTube videos of herself singing pop and musical-theatre numbers. Is she now embarrassed about those clips, many of which still circulate on the internet? “I don’t regret a single second,” she says firmly. “I admire that girl’s chutzpah. I admire who she was, who I still am – which is confident in the knowledge that the worst anyone can say is, ‘No, not today.’”

Silk dress, LOUIS VUITTON. Gold, diamond and pearl earrings; matching ring (just seen), both TIFFANY & CO

There is one particular old video of Zegler that is still widely viewed, and that is her audition tape for West Side Story. “It’s being taught, God help me, three blocks away from here in a casting class,” she says. “That’s both horrifying and also very validating.” The actress was chosen from more than 30,000 hopefuls: the realisation of every drama student’s wildest dreams, but by no means, reveals Zegler, a source of instant gratification. “Steven [Spielberg] and I have an inside joke where he’s like, ‘I made you sweat out the ages of 16 and 17.’ It’s crazy, because I auditioned for a year. They kept bringing me in, kept telling me they were still looking at bigger names. I wasn’t a name at all!” At the time, she didn’t even have an agent, so she entered the showbiz arena with very little protection and, while she knew she was in safe hands with Spielberg (“I mean, you can’t really argue with his ability to make a star – we have people like Whoopi Goldberg and Christian Bale because of him…”), she says she would have liked to have developed greater emotional maturity before being thrust into the spotlight. “I wish I’d had maybe five more years on me before all that happened – a little more of a frontal lobe.” The hardest part was waiting to enjoy the fruits of her labour. “I was cast in 2019, but nobody would see the film until late 2021, so it felt like everyone was holding their breath in anticipation, while telling me to my face how I’d better not fuck this up,” she recalls. “I was a star, but with the caveat that I still had to prove myself.”

Organza dress; beaded mules, both SIMONE ROCHA. Platinum, gold and diamond earrings; matching bracelet; matching necklace, all TIFFANY & CO

And prove herself she did, winning critical acclaim and a Best Actress trophy at the 2022 Golden Globes. Yet as her profile rose, it seemed there were still many intent on tearing her down. The 2023 superhero sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods, in which Zegler joins Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as the third in a trio of vengeful immortals, was used as a stick to beat her with, despite being conceived as crowd-pleasing entertainment with no delusions of grandeur. “Looking back, I’m able to laugh at the think pieces that came out about a family film for kids,” says Zegler wryly. “And at the end of the day, I think of those reviews and go, ‘Well, I’m in a group chat with Helen…’”

The vitriol she encountered during and after the filming of Snow White was somehow harder to take in her stride, not least because it was fuelled by racial prejudice. Her casting was accompanied by an out-cry from those who claimed that her Colombian ancestry made her unsuitable for the role and that this was an example of a “woke” diversity hire – a particularly difficult thing to hear for a star who had previously had to endure suggestions that she wasn’t sufficiently Hispanic to play Maria, who is Puerto Rican, in West Side Story. “I was told I wasn’t enough of one thing for West Side Story and too much of another for Snow White,” she says. “It was a really confusing time to be in my early twenties and hearing that. I grew up proud of being Colombian – eating the food, wearing the dresses, drinking the coffee, doing all the things that were so intrinsic to who I was as a kid and who I am as an adult – but I do think there’s an argument to be made that, in the public eye at least, when you’re two things, you’re simultaneously nothing. But I refuse to assimilate for anybody else’s comfort.” Her mother, on the other hand, built her life “in an era of assimilation being a tactic for survival” – very much the image of immigration we see portrayed in West Side Story. “It was the experience of so many people in my family: the idea that you will get a job, you will be American, and that’s how you survive – that’s the only way you’re guaranteed a future.” I suggest that it’s a sentiment that resonates even more powerfully in Trump’s America; she won’t be drawn into a political debate, but acknowledges that what’s happening in her country is “very difficult to witness in real time”.

Cotton dress, ERDEM. Leather loafers, GRENSON. Platinum and diamond necklace; matching ring (bottom); white gold and diamond ring, all TIFFANY & CO

Zegler is understandably careful with her words since the Snow White controversy that began with her casting spiralled out of control when she shared certain opinions with the world, first about the outdated portrayal of the heroine in the original film (cue the wrath of an army of die-hard Disney fans) and later, more seriously, when she publicly supported Palestinian human rights on social media. Her remarks were interpreted as particularly incendiary because her co-star Gal Gadot is a former Israel Defense Forces soldier; rumours of tension between the two women abounded.

“I was told I wasn’t enough of one thing for West Side Story and too much of another for Snow White”

Zegler has never retracted her comments and nor does she do so with me today, arguing: “I’ve said what I feel, and that will always be a testament to my core beliefs as a human. That’s where I stand.” She does, however, admit that the situation was “a complete study in intent versus impact”. “You live and you learn, and there’s a caution that comes with that,” she continues. “There’s an understanding that the temptation to speak doesn’t always mean that it must be done, and that there are a lot of opportunities to make more meaningful change than a tweet.” When I ask her whether, looking back, she thinks she ought to have anticipated the backlash, she shakes her head. “If I’d been able to predict everything that would come my way, the threats to my safety, I would have just thrown my phone into the ocean,” she says. “I think any sane person would have.”

Support came from her Shazam! castmates Mirren and Liu, who, she says, took her out for dinner and shopping in Atlanta to cheer her up and shared advice on how to navigate life as an actress. “We’d have long conversations about what it means to be a woman in this industry, and the disappointments they both faced at times,” she says, adding that they taught her to “show up for other women”, particularly young actresses. “That’s why when Whitney Peak got cast in the new Hunger Games, I reached out to say, “I’m here, even though I hope to God you don’t need me.” And the next time a woman of colour is cast as a Disney princess, I’ll be there with bells on to support them, to lift them up, to advise and to tell them what not to do.”

Silk chiffon dress, DIOR. Platinum, gold and diamond necklace; platinum and diamond ring, both TIFFANY & CO

What Zegler herself did was remain dignified in the face of the frenzy being whipped up around her, instead focusing on what her next career move should be. She had already made a convincing Broadway debut as Juliet to Kit Connor’s Romeo – the run, which ended in February 2025, broke records for attracting the youngest ever crowd of theatre-goers – so the West End felt like a natural choice. “I was like, ‘Let me go show people what I can do, eight times a week,’” she says. “I’m gonna sing, I’m gonna dance, I’m gonna act, I’m gonna make you cry, I’m gonna make you want to sing along, but I’m gonna do it in front of your face.” Starring in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Evita, which was styled like a stripped-back pop-rock concert, she made an impression not only with her pitch-perfect vocals, but also with the raw emotion she brought to the part when, each evening, she stepped out onto the balcony of the Palladium to address a rapt crowd in the street with her rendition of ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’.

The performances, she says, “immediately flipped the script”. She was hailed in the press as a revelation – an instance of swerving public opinion that chimed rather neatly with the story of Eva Péron herself, who was reviled and adored in equal measure during her lifetime. Yet the Evita lyric that Zegler tells me resonated with her the most is the one that goes: “I was stuck in the right place at the perfect time / Filled a gap, I was lucky / But one thing I’ll say for me / No one else can fill it like I can.” For while the play came along at just the right moment, who else would have looked so at ease in a role previously embodied by Elaine Paige, Patti LuPone and Madonna? “So, regardless of what women go through in the public eye, they’re there for a reason, and no one else can fill the gap that would be there if they weren’t,” concludes Zegler.

“Regardless of what women go through in the public eye, they’re there for a reason”

Performing night after night in a role that required her to be on stage – indoors or outdoors – for almost every minute of the two-hour run time (“It was a marathon!”) required superhuman energy and a correspondingly rigorous regime. “I lived like a nun,” she says with a wince. “I got crazy about it, but I’d steam constantly and have a humidifier on at night, because the voice is just such a fickle muscle. And I only had alcohol maybe once every two weeks – just one extra-dirty vodka martini after the Saturday-evening shows.” So, it has been a relief for Zegler to take a break from theatre for a few months, while she has instead been busy working with Marisa Tomei on the comedy-drama She Gets It From Me, in which she plays a bride-to-be searching for her birth mother – one of four films she has in the pipeline for the year ahead. “It’s my first time working with a woman director [the German film-maker Julia von Heinz], which I’m thrilled about,” she says.

Embroidered dress, CAROLINA HERRERA. Platinum, gold and diamond necklace, TIFFANY & CO. Suede heels, JENNIFER CHAMANDI

Nothing will keep her away from the stage for long, however: this month, she returns to the Palladium for The Last Five Years, a musical two-hander about a couple poised to separate after a five-year relationship, in which Zegler’s character Cathy’s story is told backwards, and that of her husband Jamie (played by the Tony award-winning actor Ben Platt) is chronological. It’s an intimate, deeply affecting production in which anyone who has ever been through a break-up will recognise something of their own experience. “Cathy was my dream role when I was 16, but I had never experienced heartbreak then. Now I have, and that’s just what it means to be alive,” says Zegler, who is currently single. “I’ll be bringing that lived experience of disappointment, together with the acknowledgement that doing it anyway is where the love story lives, and where the drama lives.”

“Everybody deserves to understand what’s going on in their own mind and heart”

For now, Zegler is quite happy for her own life to be drama-free. For company, she has her beloved goldendoodle Lenny, who may be even more delighted than she is to be back in the Palladium. “He was the best backstage dog on Evita – everybody loved that boy,” she says, laughing. “He even memorised the score, so when he heard ‘A New Argentina’, he’d know that Act One was ending and he’d sit up and wait for me at the door!” She is looking forward to embracing London life again – “walks on Primrose Hill, a roast by night, maybe a cocktail to finish off” – and to seeing many of her theatre friends performing on stage. And while she doesn’t deny that the more tumultuous moments of the past year have left her with some scars, she has worked through them methodically with a therapist – something she has no qualms about sharing publicly. “It’s been helpful for a lot of reasons, and it’s how I’m able to show up every day,” she says. “I long for a time when it’s not taboo to talk about and explore in a way that is universal and accessible.” Mental health, she adds, should not be a privilege of the wealthy few “because everybody deserves to understand what’s going on in their own mind and heart”.

Sheer dress, GIVENCHY BY SARAH BURTON. Mesh heels, AQUAZZURA. Gold, platinum and diamond earrings; matching necklace; gold and diamond bracelet, all TIFFANY & CO

Indeed, Zegler is very conscious of the fortunate position she is in, thanks to some astute commercial choices. “I made smart decisions by doing major franchises and whatever came my way,” she says. “I could have gone in the arthouse direction and maybe I’d have got more critical acclaim earlier on but, ultimately, freedom is a great choice. I’ve picked things that gave me the financial stability to do independent movies and 12 weeks of London theatre.” For all her success, she still has moments when she can’t quite believe how far she has come. “I had a missed call from Lin-Manuel Miranda the other day – I just know 12-year-old me would have died for that,” she says. “And Andrew Lloyd Webber’s my pen pal. He doesn’t have a phone, so he emails…”

All that, and still just 24 – Rachel Zegler may call herself “a zygote”, but the world is eagerly watching her grow.

‘The Last Five Years’ is at the London Palladium from 24 to 29 March. This article originally appeared in the April issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK – out now.

Hair by Ward Stegerhoek at Home Agency.
Make-up by Francelle Daly at Bryant Artists.
Manicure by Mo Qin at the Wall Group.
Stylist’s assistants: Cassy Meier and Hadya Tuofiq.
Set design by Jack Flanagan at Streeters.
Production: Frank Decaro. Tailoring: Jacqui Bennett

Via: Harper’s Bazaar