“The Only Musical I Could Ever Contemplate Reimagining”: ‘THR Presents’ Q&A With Steven Spielberg and the ‘West Side Story’ Team

Steven Spielberg is known for his ambitious film endeavors, and with 20th Century Studios’ West Side Story, he may have completed his most audacious project to date: successfully reimagining a best picture winner and one of the most beloved movie musicals of all time. THR’s Scott Feinberg moderated a conversation between Spielberg, producer Kristie Macosko Krieger, writer Tony Kushner, executive producer and castmember Rita Moreno, and supporting actress Oscar nominee Ariana DeBose for THR Presents, powered by Vision Media. 

Spielberg had been wanting to make a musical since the inception of his career, but wanted to be sure he could get it right before tackling the project. “When you ask me what I’d like to do someday, I’ve always said a musical,” he tells Feinberg. “What I didn’t tell you in those days was, it was West Side Story, which was the only musical I could ever contemplate reimagining, to try to get even deeper below the surface of the original ‘57 stage musical. For me, the original West Side Story onstage is the greatest musical, right next to Porgy and Bess.” 

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Still, embarking on such a monumental project proved a daunting task. First, Spielberg and producer Macosko Krieger were charged with assembling a team. Spielberg pitched Tony Kushner to adapt the script when meeting with the various estates needed to sign off on the project before he even spoke about the film with the acclaimed playwright. “I was really nervous that had I called Tony and he’d turned it down, I’d have had to go back to the estates to say, ‘I made a promise I can’t keep,’” he explains. 

Luckily, Kushner, who’s previously written for Spielberg for the films Munich and Lincoln, was eager to come aboard. “I think one of the first things I said was, ‘This is not only maybe the greatest musical ever, it’s also the greatest dance musical. So we have to get a great choreographer,’” Kushner explains. “That really excited me: the idea of somebody with Steven’s wizardry with a camera working with a choreographer. I feel like that hasn’t happened in a very long time in film, where there’s really been a collaboration between the director and the choreographer.”

Krieger has worked with Spielberg on every one of his films since 2001’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. “I think what [the estates] saw was Steven’s vision and his commitment to this iconic property,” she says. “I think my job in all of this was to help keep them informed and a part of the process and be transparent with them every step of the way. I think we really kept great relationships with all of them. And I think that was a cornerstone of why this movie turned out the way it turned out.”

Moreno won an Oscar portraying the character of Anita in the original 1961 film. She returns to the cast this time as a new character, Valentina, and serves as an executive producer as well. Upon hearing of the project, she admits: “I was concerned, for all the obvious reasons. These people wanting to improve on something that’s unimprovable. Despite that, it was peppered also with the idea that Steven Spielberg was the person who wanted to do it, and Steven has truly always been one of my favorite directors. I mean, I love him for his obvious talent. But I love him for being able to handle the damage to subjects. I mean, he can talk about Jews. He can talk about Puerto Ricans … Boy, does he know how to handle a camera. I’m calling him Steven ‘The Crane’ Spielberg.”

DeBose, who plays Anita in the new film, was also skeptical of signing on to the project at first. “In my mind, it had been done. Rita’s portrayal is iconic, absolutely legendary. And I was like, ‘Well, I don’t really know that I need to do this because [the original film] was fantastic.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, what do I have to offer the part?’ It took me a bit to find a way into the role. But I also was very aware that, traditionally, Anitas are not portrayed by women who look like me. I’m Afro-Latina, and most of the time Anitas … don’t look like me. I was also painfully aware that Hollywood had not made the habit in recent years of hiring unknowns, and giving people who don’t have a million followers on Instagram a shot at a real studio film in an iconic part like this. So I didn’t really think I had a shot at actually landing this role, but it wasn’t for lack of skill set.” 

Spielberg first met DeBose backstage after watching her perform in Hamilton on Broadway. He recalls her cool demeanor as an integral part of why she was eventually cast in the role: “Ariana was the only person in the room that wasn’t looking at me — she didn’t have hungry eyes. She kind of had this ‘take it or leave it’ face. Just the fact that she wasn’t sitting in the room, sending signals [like], ‘I really want this,’ made me really curious about her even more.”

Moreno offers a sharp insight as to why the adaptation has been so successful: “[Spielberg] is a remarkable person in so many ways. That a director of his station can make people feel comfortable, that is not easy. You really have to work at it. And he knows actors so well. He knows people so well — it shows in his films. He knows behavior so well. And that is an absolute godsend.”

This edition of THR Presents was brought to you by Disney.