Usually, celebrities interviewing each other is a terrible idea. But Jack Antonoff — who collaborated on some music for Broadway’s Romeo & Juliet — sat down with its star, Rachel Zegler, and got some good sound bites from her AND made me chuckle a few times. They don’t just sit there and agree with each other and talk about how pretty they are and how much they adore each other; instead, they argue playfully about Inside Llewyn Davis being her favorite Coen Brothers movie, and talk about fame and how much heat she’s taken for daring to accept the role of Snow White and not cower in front of racists about it:
It’s an idolization, instead of a humanization, that strips us of the ability to make mistakes and have control of our own narrative. […] I don’t know if you’ve had that experience where people expect you to be on 24/7 and want to chat and have a conversation. Because I’ve had a negative reaction from the general public at times, I don’t know what people are thinking when they point at me on the subway. If I’m passing the pizza place on a certain street, I don’t want to be gawked at, because that’s actually not the job. Do you know what I mean?
Well, for some people, it is the job. So I think it gets blurry.
For sure. People say, “Well, that’s what you signed up for.” It’s like, no, I signed up to make movies. I signed up to be in a Broadway show. I signed up to make music. I didn’t sign up to be a plastic doll for a bunch of people to pull apart and play with. Everybody’s first comment to you is like, “Twitter’s not the world, babe. Just move on.” And it’s like, well, my dog is scared of cameras because of how many people used to be outside my building.
The intro to the piece describes her as “one of the few young actors in Hollywood who doesn’t seem afraid of their own personality,” and I like that a lot. I think you’ll enjoy reading it more than you will enjoy the accompanying photos.