New Photos From Steven Spielberg's WEST SIDE STORY
Thanks to Vanity Fair, we have our first look at Steven Spielberg’s new adaptation of the classic Broadway musical, which “explores young love and tensions between rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks on the streets of 1957 New York.”
Ansel Elgort takes on the lead male role of Tony, and newcomer Rachel Zegler plays the lead female role of Maria. The members of the Jets include Anybodys (Ezra Menas), Mouthpiece (Ben Cook), Action (Sean Harrison Jones); Jets leader Riff (Mike Faist); and Baby John (Patrick Higgins). Then there are the Sharks, including Maria’s brother and leader Bernardo (David Alvarez), Quique (Julius Anthony Rubio), Chago (Ricardo Zayas), Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), Braulio (Sebastian Serra), and Pipo (Carlos Sánchez Falú). The film also stars Ariana DeBose (Anita), Ana Isabelle (Rosalia), Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank), Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke), and Curtiss Cook (Abe).
When talking about adapting the story for modern times, Spielberg explained: “This story is not only a product of its time, but that time has returned, and it’s returned with a kind of social fury. I really wanted to tell that Puerto Rican, Nuyorican experience of basically the migration to this country and the struggle to make a living, and to have children, and to battle against the obstacles of xenophobia and racial prejudice.”
The script for the movie comes from Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, who previously worked with Spielberg on Munich and Lincoln, and it’s explained that he had “to craft an updated story that retains the familiar songs but embeds them in a more realistic cityscape.”
Rita Moreno, who starred in the original West Side Story movie and also won a best-supporting actress Oscar for playing Anita, also has a new and different role in the updated film. She plays a character named Valentine, who is a new character added to the story. She is the widow of Doc, the old-timer who ran the corner store that served as neutral ground for the gangs in the original story. Like him, Valentine is a peacemaker.
Moreno explains that Spielberg and Kushner “really wanted to right some…should I say wrongs? I don’t know if that’s…yes, that’s fair, because the [1961] film had a lot of things that were wrong with it, aside from the fact that it had a lot of things that were very right.” She explains that one of the wrongs was that she was one of the few Puerto Ricans in the cast. “That’s what they were trying to fix and ameliorate, and I think they have done an incredible job.”
As a fan of West Side Story and Spielberg, it’s hard not to be excited about this movie and I love what I’m seeing in these photos. I can’t wait to see some footage from the film!
West Side Story will be released by on December 18th, 2020.
Photo Credit: NIKO TAVERNISE/TWENTIETH CENTURY STUDIOS