Disney's upcoming live-action adaptation of beloved classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs just found its leading man!
According to an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter, 30-year-old actor and Rhode Island native Andrew Burnap, who is best known for starring in award-winning gay playwright and screenwriter Matthew Lopez's critically-acclaimed Broadway drama The Inheritance, is set to join the already cast Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman, the Fast and the Furious franchise) as the male lead in Snow White!
With Marc Webb set to direct, Zegler playing the titular role, and Gadot playing the Evil queen, Burnap is reportedly playing a new, original male lead that was created specifically for the live-action retelling of the 1937 animated classic. (So no, he won't be The Prince, but that's probably a good thing since we'll that probably means we'll be getting to see a lot more of him in the film!)
Zegler, who recently won a Golden Globe for her debut film performance as Maria Vasquez in Steven Speilberg's 2021 film adaptation of West Side Story, congratulated Burnap on Twitter when he shared the news that he was cast alongside her in Snow White.
Burnap won a Tony Award last year for his role as Toby Darling in The Inheritance, which tells the story of gay New Yorkers in the generations following the onset of the AIDS epidemic.
Burnap has also been open about his fluid sexuality, citing his role in The Inheritance, one of the most awarded queer plays in recent history, as helping him become more open about that part of himself.
"On a serious note, it's opened me up to my rather fluid sexuality," Burnap told Glamour UK in a 2020 interview when asked about what he learned about himself after starring in The Inheritance. "I think it's really given me permission to understand a side of myself that I haven't given voice to or stepped fully into in my life before this play, which is a really beautiful thing."
"I very much, before this play, identified as a straight man," he continued when asked about his current relationship to sexuality, and how he no longer identifies as straight. "I think I've benefited from the privilege of being assumed as straight my entire life, but I don't identify that way. It's been interesting to have people assume that I am that, and that's been difficult for me because I am in a place in my life where I feel like I'm in a space of expansion and stepping into the full version of myself, and certainly through my own sexuality. I'm sort of falling into the category of curiosity, questioning, and trying to understand my full self, and that's a really vulnerable, scary but also beautiful place to be."
Production on Disney's Snow White is expected to begin this Spring in the U.K.!
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