‘Snow White’ (2025) controversy explained: A complete timeline of the casting backlash, CGI dwarfs, and more

After delays, rumors, and literal years of controversy, Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White is set to premiere on March 21.

Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot lead the musical as Snow White and the Evil Queen, respectively, with a supporting cast that includes Andrew Burnap, Patrick Page, and a chorus of Broadway regulars as the whistling dwarfs, including Andrew Barth Feldman and Tituss Burgess.

Directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man), the remake of 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs features new songs from songwriters Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Jack Feldman, as well as four songs from the original film.

Early reviews have been positive, but can the positive buzz help audiences digest the poison apple that is Disney’s Snow White controversy? From casting backlash and political dustups to a lingering conversation of how to portray the tale’s dwarfs in 2025, here’s a timeline detailing the Snow White live-action remake’s controversies.

June 2021: Zegler casting sparks backlash

Zegler, fresh off her acclaimed turn in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, was announced as the House of Mouse’s new Snow White in the summer of 2021. Her casting sparked a racist backlash, with some criticizing an actress of Latin descent playing a character described in the original fairy tale as having “skin as white as snow.”

Zegler spoke about the backlash during an “Actors on Actors” interview with Andrew Garfield for Variety, noting that “all of the people were angry.” After Garfield called her critics “the people that we need to love into awareness,” Zegler replied, “We need to love them in the right direction. At the end of the day, I have a job to do that I’m really excited to do. I get to be a Latina princess.”

In the summer of 2023, she pleaded with fans on Twitter to not “tag me in the nonsensical discourse about my casting. I really, truly do not want to see it.” (Halle Bailey, who faced a similar backlash when she played Ariel in Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, replied to the post with kind words.)

Speaking with Variety in 2024, she explained how the film addresses the whole “skin as white as snow” line. “It fell back to another version of Snow White that was told in history, where she survived a snowstorm that occurred when she was a baby,” she said. “And so the king and queen decided to name her Snow White to remind her of her resilience. One of the core points in our film for any young woman or young person is remembering how strong you actually are.”

January 2022: Debate over the remake’s use of dwarfs emerges

Game of Thrones‘ star Peter Dinklage, an actor with dwarfism, criticized the Snow White remake during an interview on WTF With Marc Maron. “Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Dinklage said. “Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me.”

Dinklage, who would go on to star with Zegler in 2024’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, continued, “You’re progressive in one way, but then you’re still making that f—ing backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. What the f— are you doing, man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soap box? I guess I’m not loud enough. I don’t know which studio that is, but they were so proud of it. All love and respect to the actress and all the people who thought they were doing the right thing. But I’m just like, what are you doing?”

Disney responded later that month, saying in a statement to Entertainment Weekly, “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”

The discussion continued, however, when other actors with dwarfism spoke in support of the film. Dylan Postl, a WWE wrestler and actor in films like Muppets Most Wanted (2014), told The Daily Mailthat Dinklage’s remarks were helping to “(take) jobs away from our community that are very few and far between as it is.”

September 2022: Zegler calls 1937 Snow White “outdated,” criticizes love story as “weird”

The backlash against Zegler took on a new dimension when remarks the actress made to both EW and Extra TV in 2022 began circulating online. In both interviews, which occurred at Disney’s D23 expo, Zegler criticized Disney’s 1937 adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

“The reality is that the cartoon was made 85 years ago, and therefore is extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world,” Zegler told us. “And so when we came to reimagining the actual role of Snow White, it became about ‘the fairest of them all,’ meaning who is the most just, and who can become a fantastic leader.”

She doubled down speaking with Extra TV, saying Snow White‘s love story in the 1937 film is with “a guy that literally stalks her. Weird!” She added, “We have a different approach to what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude… But it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful.”

This rubbed fans of the original the wrong way, including David Hale Hand, son of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs supervising director David Dodd Hand. Speaking with The Telegraph in 2023, the 91-year-old criticized the live-action remake for having “a whole different concept” and having “no respect for what Disney did and what my dad did.”

Calling it a “disgrace,” he went on to criticize the breadth of Disney’s live-action remakes. “They change the stories, they change the thought processes of the characters, they just aren’t the original stories anymore,” he said. “They’re making up new woke things and I’m just not into any of that.”

He wasn’t the only one who interpreted the project as “woke.” In October 2023, conservative media company the Daily Wire announced its own adaptation of Snow White, its creative team pointedly discussing the fairy tale’s “timeless values” in statements to the press. The site’s co-founder Jeremy Boreing, meanwhile, took a direct shot at Disney’s remake, saying it would “expose children to the popular but destructive lies of the current moment.”

Zegler addressed the blowback to her remarks a few times in the intervening years. “It can be very upsetting when things get taken out of context or jokes don’t land,” Zegler told Variety. “The love story is very integral. A lot of people wrote that we weren’t doing (that storyline) anymore — we were always doing that; it just wasn’t what we were talking about on that day.”

Last month, Zegler touched on it again during an interview with Vogue Mexico. “I interpret people’s feelings about this film as passion for it, and what an honor to be able to be a part of something that people are so passionate about. We’re not always going to have the same feelings as everyone around us and all we can do is give our best.”

July 2023: On-set photos of actors portraying dwarfs cause anger, confusion

Confusion and frustration erupted in online circles after The Daily Mail published on-set photos of Snow White that, per the outlet, showed how the “dwarfs” had been replaced by “magical creatures” that were “a mix of genders, ethnicities, and heights.”

A Disney spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the photos were “fake,” but later told The Independent that the photos were not “official” and showed “stand-ins for some talent.”

Postl, the actor who had previously criticized Dinklage, expressed his disappointment in an editorial for Newsweek. “In my eyes, these are seven main roles that could have gone to people with dwarfism,” he wrote. “Dwarves growing up could think: Man, there is a spot for me in Hollywood. There is a spot for me in a major motion picture that isn’t just a random cameo or a gag. I can do this. To take that away from these actors is just crazy to me.”

August 2024: Boycotts called due to Gadot’s pro-Israel stance

Gadot’s pro-Israel stance in regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict has proven to be another source of controversy. Following the attacks on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 Israelis died and 251 were taken hostage, Gadot declared that “the world has failed the women of October 7th,” calling the attacks an “urgent emergency that demands a decisive response.”

Since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, the Israel military has killed at least 48,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 112,000 more, including women and children, per Al Jazeera. This past week, a new wave of bombings across Gaza has killed an estimated 400 Palestinians.

Following the release of Snow White‘s trailer in August 2024, a member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel called for a boycott of the film, citing Gadot’s support of Israel’s military actions. “By choosing to directly represent genocidal Israel, Gal Gadot’s films are boycottable,” they said to The Guardian. (Gadot, a former Miss Israel, also served in the Israel Defense Forces.)

Zegler, meanwhile, has long shown herself to be a supporter of Palestine. In May 2024, for example, she tweeted that she had “been public with a pro-Palestine stance since 2021.” Later that summer, she followed up a post about Snow White’s trailer by saying, “And always remember, free Palestine.”

Though neither star spoke publicly about the other’s view on the conflict, a number of outlets fanned the flames of the disagreement, with Newsweek saying the pair were on a “collision course.”

In March 2025, Gadot, who describes herself as an “indigenous person of Israel,” defended her Israel advocacy in an interview with Variety. “(On) October 7th, when people were abducted from their homes, from their beds, men, women, children, elderly, Holocaust survivors, were going through the horrors of what happened that day, I could not be silent,” she said. “I was shocked by the amount of hate, by the amount of how much people think they know when they actually have no idea, and also by how the media is not fair many times. So I had to speak up.”

October 2024: Zegler reaffirms pro-Palestine stance

Speaking with Variety, Zegler maintained her support of Palestine, though she made no comments about the views of her costar. “I can’t watch children die. I don’t think that should be a hot take,” she said.

She added, “We’re nearing one year since the horrendous attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, but I’ve been following this conflict for so many years. Like so many people, I’m so heartbroken by the loss of life that we’re seeing with these insane death tolls coming out of both regions.”

November 2024: Zegler criticizes Donald Trump’s reelection, riles up conservatives again

Following the reelection of Donald Trump, Zegler again drew the ire of conservatives by sharing an Instagram story in which she said, “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”

The MAGA crowd called for its own boycott of the film, with right-wing host Megyn Kelly labeling Zegler a “pig” and demanding that Disney fire her from the project.

Shortly thereafter, Zegler apologized via her Instagram. “I let my emotions get the best of me,” she wrote. “Hatred and anger have caused us to move further and further away from peace and understanding, and I am sorry I contributed to the negative discourse.”

February 2025: Disney reveals only one of its CGI dwarfs will be played by an actor with dwarfism

In October 2023, a first-look image of the “live-action” Snow White revealed that the seven dwarfs would be CGI creations rather than proper actors. It wasn’t until last month, though, that Disney revealed the dwarfs were voiced and mo-capped by Andrew Barth Feldman, Tituss Burgess, George Salazar, Jason Kravits, Andy Grotelueschen, Jeremy Swift, and Martin Klebba. Klebba is the only one who had previously been announced — and he was also the only one with dwarfism.

The choice was criticized by many actors with dwarfism, including actress Ali Chapman. “It’s a movie that’s supposed to have real dwarves. Instead, Disney chose to use CGI to replace actors and actresses that are little people that are very talented,” Chapman said in March. “That’s seven roles right there. Seven little people that could’ve filled those roles, and unfortunately we were shut out of that opportunity.”

March 2025: Disney scales back the Snow White premiere

On March 11, Variety reported that Disney was going to forgo a traditional red-carpet premiere for the film’s Hollywood debut on March 15, limiting the event to just photographers and house interviewers.

Sources told PEOPLE that Snow White was always meant to have a smaller premiere and that “nothing was scaled back.”

But Klebba, who plays Grumpy, claimed to The Hollywood Reporter that the premiere changes were due to “the controversy with Rachel,” adding that the studio is “afraid of the blowback from different people in society.” Klebba did admit, however, that he “had not been given direct information on why the event was altered.”

The premiere unfolded without incident, and the studio and creative team has sought to portray a cordial relationship between Zegler and Gadot. The two presented at the Academy Awards together on March 2, and several sources downplayed the rumored tension between the pair to PEOPLE.

“Gal is annoyed by the movie drama,” said one source. “She enjoyed filming. She was fine with Rachel but they are not friends. They have nothing in common… They did a job together and that’s it.”

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