Rachel Zegler recently admitted to not liking Snow White when growing up, which has come as a shock to many, considering she’s set to play the titular character next year, but she’s not the only actor to purportedly not be in love with a project they’re directly involved in.
Sometimes what seems like a dream role can turn out to suck for the actor performing. Such is the case with Harrison Ford, who, after more than four decades of being associated with Han Solo in Star Wars, is understandably sick of the character, famously asking for him to be killed off when it came around to The Force Awakens.
Ford’s not the only one, however, as Rachel Zegler made a similar revelation during an interview with Entertainment Weekly where she admitted that Snow White scared her as a child. “I was scared of the original cartoon. I think I watched it once and then I never picked it up again.” Whilst she clearly doesn’t hate the character or the story, some fans were disappointed that Disney had decided to cast someone who clearly wasn’t a passionate fan of the source material.
Many fans are in agreement that it would have made sense to cast someone who loves the character rather than someone who watched the film for the first time in 16 years after being cast. However, this seems to be more of a justification for those who just hate the idea of the remake changing aspects of the original. Zegler does have her defenders, with some fans comparing her attitude to that of the legendary Harrison Ford, “Harrison Ford hates Star Wars and y’all adore him. Cope.”
Not everyone was willing to accept that comparison, though, as one fan correctly pointed out, Ford has been involved in Star Wars for over 40 years.
Comparing Star Wars fandom to the Snow White fandom is wild… Harrison Ford has good reason to hate Star Wars after 40+ years – Rachel Ziegler has been famous for 5 minutes and has been insufferable for every moment of it.
Fan reactions to the revelation were pretty divided as you’d expect. But the majority of Disney fans were pretty upset with Zegler’s admission.
Others weren’t so quick to condemn the actress. Whilst the Harrison Ford comparison may not fly, there were still many who weren’t really that bothered by her comments. Just because she’s not the number one Snow White fan in the world doesn’t mean she won’t be able to give a great performance as an up-to-date version of the character.
Zegler mentions the Snow White ride scaring her the most as a child and an old recording of the ride shows that perhaps she was on to something; it does look scary enough to put you off the film for life, especially if you’re a kid.
The takeaway here is that, as an actor in a lead role, it’s probably best not to alienate fans by admitting to not liking the source material, even if, in this case, we’d argue Zegler’s reasons are more than justified.