West Side Story: Spielberg on casting the film from Latinx community - BBC News

Steven Spielberg, the director of the new film adaptation of the musical West Side Story, has said he insisted on casting actors from the Latin American community for relevant roles.

West Side Story is a love story set amid two warring teenage gangs - the Jets and the Sharks - on New York's Upper West Side in the 1950s.

Inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it is viewed by many people as the greatest American musical of all time.

"I think I wanted to direct a musical film because I knew I couldn't sing and dance," added the ET, Jaws and Schindler's List filmmaker.

But I have been in love with West Side Stories since I was 10.".

The original film adaptation of the Broadway musical was a huge hit, winning 10 Oscars.

According to New York theatre critic Michael Riedel, Spielberg and Kushner's version has added intensity.

The launch of West Side Story in New York this week has been bittersweet for Spielberg and his cast because of the death of US music theatre legend Sondheim aged 91, prior to the film's big Monday night premiere.

"I showed him the film back in February of this year and he loved it and could not wait until Monday night, he wanted to see it with a big audience," said Spielberg.

"This is the first, full Steven Spielberg musical, and it seems he has been depriving himself and us all," wrote Empire's Helen O-Hara.

"The film fuses the colour and euphoria of a Golden Age movie musical with the teeming, dirty-fingernailed grandeur of a classic American immigrant epic.".

"The new West Side Story won't take the place of the glorious 1961 screen version..?

The original film version of West Side Story's 10 Oscars included one for best picture.

"There was never any doubt that Spielberg would be able to direct a handsome looking musical," she said, but added: "All those technical triumphs only complicate what feels like an unanswerable question: how can a film look this good, feel so moving, and still come up lacking?"?

Steven Spielberg has shown us how you remake one of the great movie musicals.

But West Side Story, with its familiar much-loved songs could be a welcome panacea for audiences still struggling with some of the anxieties of life in the COVID-19 era."