Biography
Rachel Zegler emerged as a singer and actress whose warm, expressive voice and operatic range propelled her directly from high school into starring parts on both the big screen and Broadway stages. Her breakthrough came with the role of Maria in Steven Spielberg’s film version of West Side Story, a part she secured at age 16 after answering an open casting call; this marked her cinematic debut and earned her the 2022 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. On screen once more, she performed songs in the 2023 release The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and the following year she made her Broadway entrance in Romeo + Juliet, whose score was written by Jack Antonoff. From that production came her single “Man of the House,” a contemporary R&B-pop ballad delivered solo by Zegler and issued to coincide with the show’s opening.
She entered the world on May 3, 2001, in Hackensack, New Jersey, receiving her name from the Friends character Rachel Green. With roots in Colombia and Poland, she encountered childhood prejudice that led her toward theater early on; at twelve she landed her initial stage part in Fiddler on the Roof. Acting and vocal training began around the same period. During high school she portrayed Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical, along with additional leading roles. By fourteen she had launched a personal YouTube channel. When Steven Spielberg announced an open casting search for Maria via Twitter in early 2018, Zegler submitted videos of herself performing “Tonight” and “I Feel Pretty,” having already taken on the same character in an Englewood, New Jersey staging of West Side Story the previous year. Out of thirty thousand hopefuls, she was chosen for the part.
West Side Story reached American cinemas in December 2021, pairing Zegler with Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. In 2022 the picture received seven Academy Award nominations, one of which went to DeBose for Best Supporting Actress, while Zegler claimed the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, becoming its youngest recipient at twenty. Following a role in the 2023 action picture Shazam! Fury of the Gods, she embodied Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, singing country-folk numbers with the fictional Covey Band. A soundtrack album drawn from and inspired by the movie, prominently showcasing Zegler, charted on Billboard’s country and soundtrack lists.
Her next milestone was the Broadway bow in Romeo + Juliet, a fresh musical that premiered in October 2024 and incorporated incidental music plus songs by Grammy-winning artist Jack Antonoff of Bleachers and Fun. Zegler’s solo “Man of the House” appeared as a single that same month. She then starred in the comedy-horror feature Y2K that December.
She entered the world on May 3, 2001, in Hackensack, New Jersey, receiving her name from the Friends character Rachel Green. With roots in Colombia and Poland, she encountered childhood prejudice that led her toward theater early on; at twelve she landed her initial stage part in Fiddler on the Roof. Acting and vocal training began around the same period. During high school she portrayed Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical, along with additional leading roles. By fourteen she had launched a personal YouTube channel. When Steven Spielberg announced an open casting search for Maria via Twitter in early 2018, Zegler submitted videos of herself performing “Tonight” and “I Feel Pretty,” having already taken on the same character in an Englewood, New Jersey staging of West Side Story the previous year. Out of thirty thousand hopefuls, she was chosen for the part.
West Side Story reached American cinemas in December 2021, pairing Zegler with Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. In 2022 the picture received seven Academy Award nominations, one of which went to DeBose for Best Supporting Actress, while Zegler claimed the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, becoming its youngest recipient at twenty. Following a role in the 2023 action picture Shazam! Fury of the Gods, she embodied Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, singing country-folk numbers with the fictional Covey Band. A soundtrack album drawn from and inspired by the movie, prominently showcasing Zegler, charted on Billboard’s country and soundtrack lists.
Her next milestone was the Broadway bow in Romeo + Juliet, a fresh musical that premiered in October 2024 and incorporated incidental music plus songs by Grammy-winning artist Jack Antonoff of Bleachers and Fun. Zegler’s solo “Man of the House” appeared as a single that same month. She then starred in the comedy-horror feature Y2K that December.
Albums
Singles
