It’s hard to believe it’s been almost exactly a year since Snow White hit theaters, bringing with it more controversy than all the other live-action Disney remakes combined. Some of that kerfluffle was racist and arrived with the casting of Rachel Zegler—the half-Colombian star of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story—and some of it came when, amid the promotion cycle for her Disney princess turn, Zegler wrote “Free Palestine” on her social media.
Some took that as a dig at co-star Gal Gadot, who is Israeli, but Zegler never elaborated on that. And Zegler never deleted the post; it’s still viewable some 18 months later. Perhaps inevitably, she’s still being asked about the backlash. In a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar (via Entertainment Weekly), she talked about what she learned from the experience.
“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 said.
Even though she still believes in what she wrote, it was a teaching moment in regard to “intent versus impact” because “you live and you learn, and there’s a caution that comes with that.”
Zegler continued. “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.”
What’s more, “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. I think any sane person would have.”
You can read the full interview at Harper’s Bazaar, where Zegler also notes one positive takeaway from being in the box-office flop Shazam! Fury of the Gods is that she’s now part of a group chat with co-star Helen Mirren.
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