Lead Actors Minimize Media Contact, Eliminate Red Carpet Interviews
Disney's live-action film 'Snow White' held a screening in Hollywood, USA, on the 15th (local time).
Foreign media such as AFP reported that although Snow White is one of Disney's major new releases this year, the screening was quietly conducted without red carpet interviews with the lead actors.
According to reports, at the Hollywood screening held that afternoon, lead actors including Rachel Zegler, who plays the protagonist Snow White, and Gal Gadot, who plays the Queen, minimized contact with the media and avoided questions regarding various controversies surrounding the film. The European screening held in Spain on the 12th was also quietly conducted with almost no media invited.
Some say Disney's approach seems closely related to the various controversies that have continued since the casting of Snow White was announced in 2021.
Previously, the lead role in this new live-action musical film adaptation of Disney's original animated fairy tale 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937) was given to Rachel Zegler (23), a Latin American American actress with a Colombian mother.
Actor Rachel Zegler Attending the Premiere of the Live-Action Movie 'Snow White' Photo by EPA Yonhap News
However, some Disney fans and conservative groups argued that Zegler's appearance does not fit the role of Snow White, who is described in the original as having snow-white skin.
In response to the controversy over her casting, Zegler expressed discomfort on social media at the time, saying, "Yes, I am Snow White, but I will not bleach my skin for the role." She also directed harsh insults at then-U.S. President Donald Trump on social media. Additionally, she voiced her support for Palestine, which is at war with Israel, posting politically sensitive messages without hesitation. Regarding the insults directed at President Trump, she stated, "I sincerely want to apologize for the post" and "I am sorry for fueling negative discourse in the heat of emotion."
Due to delays in production caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the film's production costs are estimated to have reached at least several hundred billion won. Rachel Zegler, the lead actress, recently told Vogue Mexico in an interview that she interprets the controversies surrounding the film as people's 'passion' for it, saying, "I am honored to be part of something that people feel so passionately about."
Snow White will be released in the United States on the 21st.
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