Rachel Zegler names the best songs from her favourite musicals
After her breakout role in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of West Side Story, Rachel Zegler quickly became the people’s princess and adored addition to Hollywood, with an insane amount of talent for someone of her age and holding her ground in one of the most famous musicals of all time.
Through her role as Maria, Zegler quickly rose to prominence and found success in other franchises, becoming the face of the new Hunger Games series and the reluctant poster girl for Disney after her recent involvement in the disastrous reboot of Snow White (through no fault of her own).
But while she has starred in huge commercial pictures, she has made more of a name for herself through her Broadway work, with theatre performers being an entirely unique breed of actors by embodying the triple threat of skills through their ability to sing, dance and act. As a huge fan of the medium and fellow theatre nerd, Zegler has displayed a fountain of knowledge on every musical under the sun, describing the one musical she loves most as the West Side Story.
There isn’t one song or tune in West Side Story that misses, whether it be the wonderful overture, the genius clashing rhythms of Leonard Bernstein’s score or the beautiful solo from Maria. It’s a musical for the ages that captures the age-old love story between star-crossed lovers and the ensuing chaos as they fight to be together.
While Zegler has recently played another star-crossed lover through her work in Romeo and Juliet on the stage, she has described her love for Sweeney Todd, another musical that she holds close to her heart.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, originally composed by Stephen Sondheim, follows a murderous barber who seeks revenge against his enemies, a more unique musical given its less-than-feel-good qualities and dark streak.
While it was later adapted for the screen with johnny Depp in the lead role, true theatre roles will always remember it for its first iteration on the stage, with Zegler exclaiming her love for it by saying, “I love Sweeney Todd, it was my favourite growing up because it was the first musical I was really introduced to, composed by the late great Steve Sondheim. And my favourite song has to be the Joanna Quartet that is kind of sung over each other when Sweeney is coming to terms with the possibility of never seeing his daughter again, and it’s just a beautiful song.”.
Sometimes the things we watch as young people have the biggest effect on us, although it’s hard to imagine watching such a terrifying story as Sweeney Todd as a child, but perhaps that is why it stuck out in Zegler’s memory. It’s beloved by many, winning the coveted Tony award and being adapted by many different theatre productions across the UK. While Zegler has not yet starred in a production of the musical, perhaps this is on the horizon for her and simply the next stop in her flourishing career.
