West Side Story Star Won't Be at Oscar Ceremony
Earlier this year, Rachel Zeglar won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress-Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her role as Maria in the Steven Spielberg film West Side Story. The movie was also nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, although not Best Actress. However, you might still be surprised to learn that Rachel Zeglar was not invited to the Academy Awards ceremony. This news was not broadcast, but came out in a reply to a comment at Instagram under the picture gallery above.
Who dropped the ball on this one? It turns out that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences does not send individual invitations to the Oscar ceremony, but allocates them to the film studios for distribution. For West Side Story, that's Disney. Some have speculated that Disney did not want to interrupt the shooting schedule for Zeglar's next movie, Snow White, in which Zeglar has the title role. Filming for Snow White is currently going on in London. Zeglar responded to outpouring of sympathy from fans on Twitter.
The 94th Academy Awards will be bestowed this Sunday, March 27.
Update: Since this post was published, the Academy has done an end-run around Disney and has invited Zeglar to be a presenter at the Oscars. That's an automatic ticket.