Rachel Zegler Landed Her Shazam! Fury of the Gods Role After Being Rejected as Supergirl in The Flash

Rachel Zegler secured her role in Shazam! Fury of the Gods after being rejected for the role of Supergirl in The Flash.

Rachel Zegler has been on quite a journey in the last couple of years. Having been plucked from virtual obscurity to play Maria in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, the actress will soon be playing Snow White in Disney’s live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but before that, she will appear in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. However, her DCU debut could have been as a completely different character if she had been successfully cast as Supergirl in The Flash.

In a recent interview with SlashFilm, Zegler recalled being initially approached to play Supergirl in the Ezra Miller-led DCU-rebooting The Flash, but she was turned down for the role after reading for the part, with it instead going to Sasha Calle. Zegler noted that casting director Rich Delia came back to her and said:

“He was like, ‘You know what, I’ve got a character in mind for you for Shazam. They’re looking at X, Y, Z. We would love it if you came in and read.”

It certainly seems to have all worked out fine in the end for Zegler, and she has not suffered for missing out on playing The Flash’s iteration of Supergirl. While there are very few details known about her appearance in Shazam! Fury of the Gods as one of the daughters of Atlas, Zegler’s appearance in the trailer has suggested another big role for the young star.

Related: Rachel Zegler Says Snow White Scared Her So Much as a Child, She Only Saw It Once

Rachel Zegler Has Been Cast As The Lead In The Hunger Games Prequel.

While the decision to not play Supergirl in The Flash was one that was taken out of her hands, her casting as the female lead of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was one she initially turned down. Discussing her casting in the prequel to the Jennifer Lawrence-led movie franchise, Zegler said:

“Let me tell you because is such an embarrassing story for me. I was offered it in January of last year after wanting it so badly. I didn’t audition, it was just, I got a call from my agent that was like ‘Francis Lawrence [The Hunger Games film series director] wants you to do this.’ And I met with him for like three hours at the Soho Hotel in London. And then he told me that they were filming in Germany and in Poland and I had just gotten to London and I wanted to disappear because I was so far away from home for the first time ever. And I was away from everybody that I knew and loved, and I said ‘no.’ And I regretted it the second I said it. I had another project lined up that fell through that got pushed into 2023 and I just kind of put my name back into the mix and got it, and I feel really bad for any of the girls… because I put my name back in and they were just like ‘yup, OK, cool, we’ll do it.'”