Zegler, 25, is now poised to bring her acclaimed portrayal of the former First Lady of Argentina to Broadway, with previews for the show beginning in February 2027. The musical’s highly anticipated New York City run will kick-start a chapter in which Zegler is also set to return to the big screen for the first time since starring in Disney’s 2025 live-action version of Snow White, and its assorted controversies—ranging from racist trolling about Zegler’s Colombian heritage to debates over her take on the 1937 animated original and heated commentary about the star’s political views.
“It’s a very important thing for all women, but particularly those in this industry, to learn that you’re never going to please everybody,” Zegler says of what she took away from that period of intense scrutiny. “If you are doing everything you can to be fulfilled and to do good work with good people, the rest of it is really just noise.”
Reflecting on how she was criticized for not being “enough of one thing” for her breakout role playing the Puerto Rican character Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and “too much of another” for Snow White, Zegler maintains she will always be grateful for the formative impact of both films, despite the turbulence. “I was thrilled with the response for West Side Story. I won a Golden Globe when I was 20,” she says. “And similarly for Snow White, I was so proud of my performance. It was ultimately a really soul-filling learning experience.”
With a slate of forthcoming features in the pipeline, including indie dramedy She Gets It From Me, psychological thriller NDA, and the Lin-Manuel Miranda–directed Octet, Zegler is now looking ahead to new horizons. “I had one mission this year, which was to work with women and Latinos,” she says. She’s excited for the doors those films will open—“Not just for me, but for the amazing people I got to make them with, who in the past have been disenfranchised in this industry.”
Ultimately, Zegler refuses to let anyone put her in a box. “I love playing fully formed humans with complexities,” she says. “Human beings deserve to be represented for their flaws as well as the things that make them wonderful—I kind of think they’re one and the same.”
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