Before Lea Michele was a TV star and singer, she was a Broadway powerhouse. But even though she has some major pipes and performed in the Broadway production of Spring Awakening, it seems that she didn't always get every role she wanted. Case in point: Maria of West Side Story fame.
In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, the actress explains how devastated she was to get rejected from the role after working so hard to prepare for it. Although she doesn't mention which character she auditioned for, various sites and blog posts have previously reported that she auditioned for Maria, the musical's leading lady.
"I was dreaming of being in this production of West Side Story that was coming to Broadway, and I worked so hard on the audition. Literally, I learned Spanish for it," Lea said. "And I get into the room, and before I could even begin, I said maybe one line, and they were like, 'Thank you so much. Have a great day.' And they escorted me out."
"I was gutted. I went home and I cried so hard," Lea went on. "I'm friends with Idina Menzel, and I remember crying to her, being like, 'What am I going to do? This was my dream role, I have to play this part.'"
A lot of theater heads have the same feelings about Maria, the Juliet of the story. But also notable is the role's major history of whitewashing; in the popular 1961 film version of West Side Story, the Puerto Rican heroine is played by Natalie Wood. (The film also featured George Chakiris, whose parents were from Greece, as Bernardo. Rita Moreno, who played Anita, is actually Puerto Rican, but even she was forced to wear brownface.) Yet in the new interview, as well as in other instances in which Lea has told the story, the actress, who is is white, with Italian and Greek roots, does not acknowledge that Maria is Puerto Rican. (The 2009 production gave the role of Maria to Argentinian actress Josefina Scaglione, who made her Broadway debut in the show.)
In Lea's memoir Brunette Ambition, the Glee actress wrote how Natalie had been her role model since childhood. (Lea also briefly tells the story of her West Side Story audition in the book.) But just because you want to play the same role as your icon doesn't necessarily mean you should.
Though Natalie's turn as Maria was pretty iconic (even with a dubbed singing voice) it speaks to a larger issue inherent in Hollywood at that time, and one that the Broadway producers thankfully didn't perpetuate: whitewashing. The film has been rightfully called out for its use of white actors in a film about Latinx characters in the years since its debut. And, frustratingly, it was not the first and definitely wasn't the last time erasure of this kind has happened.
It's entirely possible that Lea meant no harm in her comment that she wanted to play Maria, but times have changed, and it's just as likely that the people behind the production wanted to do their due diligence (as they should) in order to make sure that the production wasn't culturally appropriative.
That said, just a month after the rejected audition, Lea was cast as Rachel Berry in Glee. Ironically, in the show's third season of the show, Rachel played Maria in her high school's production of West Side Story—although she had to split the role with Amber Riley's character, Mercedes.
Related: The Beauty Evolution of Lea Michele
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