“A Bit Different Story Wise”: Live-Action Snow White Story Changes & Massive CGI Teased By Rachel Zegler

Snow White‘s story changes have been teased by the lead actor. The movie, which is a live-action update of the first-ever Disney animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, stars The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes‘ Rachel Zegler in the title role. She will appear in the musical, which features songs from the 1937 original as well as new tracks from Pasek & Paul, alongside Wonder Woman‘s Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen.

Per Variety, Rachel Zegler recently spoke about her role in the live-action Snow White as part of their “Actors on Actors” feature. The actor stated that, while she did get to perform the classic song “Whistle While You Work,” the new movie will make some significant changes to the source material, and “I don’t want to mess this up for anybody, including myself.” However, she shared that what she was “really nervous” about was the technical side of the production, which required a lot of CGI. Read her full quote below:

This is an iconic thing that people really care about. I don’t want to mess this up for anybody, including myself. The writers and [director] Marc Webb and our entire producing team…it’s a bit different story wise. We were able to do “Whistle While You Work,’”which made me really happy and excited. I was really nervous more about the technical element. That first-look image went out… and there’s a lot of CGI in the film.

Snow White’s Story Changes Explained

There is still more than a year before the release of Snow White, which was recently delayed to 2025 amid the dual Hollywood strikes as writers and then actors took to the picket lines to fight for fair pay. As such, many details of the story are still being kept under wraps. However, some of the major changes that Zegler alludes to have already been revealed.

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Perhaps the biggest alteration in the movie is the way the seven dwarfs are presented. After Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage and others raised issues with the original movie’s depiction of little people, it was originally announced that the “dwarfs” were going to be a variety of magical creatures of different sizes. However, that decision was eventually reversed amid backlash around the Snow White dwarf casting controversy and the dwarfs are now being represented as entirely computer-generated creations.

In addition to the recurring alterations made to the dwarfs, the Snow White title character will be getting something of a facelift to reflect the shifting social mores of the modern era. Snow White herself is set to become a more active character in her own story. Zegler has described her character arc as a woman learning to embrace more of a leadership position, which is a major difference from the original character, though it could potentially remain in keeping with the overall arc of the story.