'West Side Story' won top honors at the 1962 Oscars. Now the 2021 adaptation could continue the tale's winning streak at 2022's Academy Awards.
There's no Oscar for casting, but Cindy Tolan's work on "West Side Story" proves there's no doubt the job is critical to the success of a movie.
The 1957 musical tells the story of rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, and is loosely based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. For the 2021 film, starring newcomer Rachel Zegler and Ansel Elgort as Maria and Tony, Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner focused on creating an authentic portrayal of New York's San Juan Hill neighborhood in the 1950s. Spielberg says they brought in historical consultants who lived in the neighborhood at the time to guide the cast.
"The whole template of our reimagined 'West Side Story' based on the Broadway play was it needed to be authentic. It needed to be realistic," Spielberg told ABC News. "It couldn't be a theater musical," he added."It had to be a street musical. It had to feel like these were the real streets that these stories, these events, and this comedy, and this jubilation, and this tragedy was taking place on."The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of 20th Century Studios and this station.
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